Natural Selection

Wehappy - even mainstream researchers extrapolating from mouse to man expect about 30 new gene families in man. And there is one known example that distinguishes between cetain primates as an example. We'll see.

William EHI basically agree with you although I wouldn't get too caught up on the number of bases per year. Are you aware that there are huge chunks of (mainly 'junk') DNA that does distinguish between otherwise completely normal humans? Horizontal transfer, copying errors etc. There are wierd sections of DNA that, becasue of repeats, you get frequent miscopyings and the thing gets bigger and bigger!If you concentrate back on genes I'll agree with you almost entirely except your exact numbers. Then you can decide how valuable your arguement becomes.One issue to be carful about is that mammals pretty much have near identical genomes (we have recently got the mouse genome). Man and mouse differ by only 300 gene families I think (someone correct me if I am wrong). I don't know when mice supposedly arrived by evo-theory but if we put them at 30 million years that makes one new gene family per 100,000 years.For the evolutionist the hard ask is that novel biochemical systems require many multiple new genes to be operational. I'm not saying that all are needed but aminimal subset is. The idea that the immune system arrived one gene at a time is ludicrous. Evolutionists are telling a far bigger fairy tale than the one they accuse us of.Probably the better arguement along these lines is that we should have seen substantial macroevolution of new gene families in artificially stressed bacteria. In the lab the euibvalent of millions of years of evoltuion has been observed. And evoltuion really works very well. It just doesn't make new genes so far - it's really good at optimizing existing genes for new circumstances though.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 07-15-2002]

Thanks for your response. I recognize the junk DNA between genes. Space between genes helps with crossing over and may have other functions. It may be that there is no correlation bewteen the number of bases and the number of genes, but I assume that there is in my second argument. I agree that evolution takes a small family of genes and evolutionists have a difficult time doing it one mutation at a time. Also, what is called evolution in the lab is only speciation and does not procuce a new Genus. Do not all of Darwin's finches have the same genes but with different SPNs? This is survival of the fitter, but is it really evolution?
William------------------

You addressed this to me, but I think the intended addressee was wehappyfew.--Percy

William EHYes, lab evolution is simply speciation or less with the priviso that species vs genus is pretty subjective so I wouldn't have a problem getting new genera via microevoltuion. This really does have to be clarified at the moelcualr level. Evoltuion ultimately works there. I think it's great that creation can vary beak shapes. It can be called geniation for all I care. The point is that what happens in finches is not even expected to be the origin of new gene families.Darwins finches include several genera but I believe they are related via microevoltuion (ie SNPs). The genetic data of course can't rule out new genes (we don't have full genomes on one finch let alone all of them!) but even mainstream researchers would not be claiming the morphological variety was due to new genes.Evoltuon - I don't have a problem with the word myself. It's just a matter of defintion. Genomes evolve in my opinion, but I just don't beleive they ever evolved new functional gene families.

Thanks for your input. I am curious about the new Genera of finches on the Galapagos. What is the criteria for this? I have no problem with there being a new Genus of finches there. Improper mating displays may prevent interbreeding of species while artificial insemination can still produce viable offspring.
William

Howdy,
two fragments of information bear upon this line of reasoning and indicate that culture may have taken over from natural selection in the case of human evolution.
--Around 30,000 BCE, a multidisciplinary review of data postulates there was a choke point in the human population. Maybe 1,000 individuals survived a planetary catastrophe. That is a small gene pool to start with. The presentation did not indicate how spread out these individuals were over the continents. They say it indicates why there is no speciation in humans. Maybe this means these individuals were local to each other. Since we are travelers and lovers by nature, one might think this worked against speciation in the period since then. This is a summary from several discovery channel presentations and they don't list references.
--Recently, underwater archeology has come from nowhere to grab the spotlight away from mainstream land-lubbers. Settlements on the Black Sea Plain now under 600 feet of water must be 7-9,000 years old. The structures under water off Yonaguni Island were underwater for at least that long, and maybe 10,000 years old. But, they are megalithic and carved into foundation rock. Other examples.....Global travel by our direct ancestors in periods before 3,500BCE may have been extensive since we now know they had tools and technology long before Egyptian and Mesopotamian settlements indicate.Hope this contributes.

TB said:

quote:

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Evoltuon - I don't have a problem with the word myself.

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What do you mean, you don't have a problem with the word? You sure seem to have trouble spelling it.Moose------------------
BS degree, geology, '83
Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Old Earth evolution - Yes
Godly creation - Maybe

Here is a thought experiment that demonstrates how "perception" manipulates the chances of something happening depending upon from whch end of the scenario one looks:
A man walks across a room 100 paces wide. Each foot-fall is marked. When he gets to the other side he turns around to see the long line of foot-falls. When asked if he can exactly retrace his footfalls, he responds, "of course". Then, mysteriously, all the floor of the building falls away except the foot-falls.The point. Walking across was matter-of-fact. Retracing the exact steps looks very difficult. A scientist has to see the big picture and understand how things looked from the past coming forward to the present. A superficial analysis from the present looking back would conclude intelligent design.

Laugh a minute Moose.

I agree Will EH. How genera get defined is something I have not spent time getting into. It is no doubt somewhat subjective and certainly isn't based on issues of mechanistic molecular novelty but I respect it as the best thing we currently have for cataloging all of life.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 07-28-2002]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by axial soliton:
[B]The structures under water off Yonaguni Island were underwater for at least that long, and maybe 10,000 years old. But, they are megalithic and carved into foundation rock.[/quote][/b]I saw the Yonaguni Island show. I was not impressed. I looked it up. Apparently not a lot of scientists are impressed. True, the rock formations off of Yanuguni are impressive but look like rock formations, not like pyramids or monoliths.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

Since Moose brought it up first, I may as well mention that when I run spellcheck in replies to you, your quoted portions light up like a Christmas tree. When searching through a thread to find a specific part from you I have to remember your favorite misspellings. An incomplete list:

advantagesou
aninimal
appearences
arguement
baises
becasue
beleive
carful
cetain
creaitonist
definietely
defintion
defomed
differnet
eletrons
empericism
euibvalent
evoltuion
experince
fustration
imposible
microevoltuion
moelcualr
mutaion
mutaitonl
nucelotide
obvioulsy
poulation
porblem
priviso
protien
recenly
seqeunce
suppoose
wierd
worng

--Percy

[QUOTE][B]Maybe 1,000 individuals survived a planetary catastrophe. [/QUOTE][/B]Does anybody else think that the nature of the aforementioned catastrophe should be checked out? I've heard it pinned on a caldera collapse in Asia.

I had read any of this space as a chemical "acridine" and never a form of empirical geometry. My reading here may be out of date.