Does microevolution logically include macroevolution?

Is there any reason why we should consider this anything more than simply your own opinion? I mean you don't have anything useful like actual evidence do you? Ah, I see, you now absolutely nothing about biology, why didn't you say so. The vast majority of proteins fall into asily classifiable families based upon similiar structural features, both in therms of DNA and amino acid sequence. If slightly altered 'blueprints' are not sufficient for 'new' genes then why do we have so many large families of genes which only differ by certain alterations, of varying magnitude? I love the smell of bullshit in the morning. There are a vast amount of documented mutations that change function, they may produce deleterious effects as well but they definitely produce new functions. Any evidence for this? *Bzzzt*. Wrong, but thank you for playing. There is no neccessity for intermediary stages to be non-functional as has already been pointed out several times. No one other than the ID and creationist camps is suggesting that the usual route for the formation of new genes is a one step miracle process, the problem is you assume all the piecemeal changes are useless, which need not be the case. If you are a biblical literalist then why are you wasting our time with this penny-ante IDist soft shoe informational twaddle?TTFN,WK

OK, a brief look shows that this is not the case. An alignment of Proinsulin homologues, select Multiple Alignment from the dropdown display menu, from a variety of vertebrates shows a high degree of variation at the amino acid level.Only partially processed proinsulin has been shown to retain ~58% of the activity of fully processed insulin and individuals with a particular amino acid substitution, causing the incomplete cleavage of pro-insulin, show no apparent symptoms (Gabbay et al., 1979). I appreciate that these individuals are almost certainly heterozygous and also posess a wild type allele but this research still shows that some amino acid substitutions will still allow some functionality for proinsulin.Even the original aricle doesn't explicitly claim that all 84 amino acids are required since it notes that in some species the protein is only 81 amino acids in length. It is obviously an assumption implicit in the subsequent calculation however, and one frequently made by creationists and IDists to bolster just this sort of bogus probability calculation.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 09-02-2005 06:53 AM

Damn, I should really read these posts all the way through before replying. Ho, hum.TTFN,WK

Of course it doesn't have a goal, but it certainly has memory in the form of DNA,memory which can be both read and written to. Yes it is, look up 'gene conversion', wholly novel arragements of domains are possible which can quite easily produce radical new functional arrangements for proteins which may well need a new familial classification. Not quite what I said. I said that there were differences of varying magnitude. The protein are classed due to specific structural similarities. and as with such classifications with animals by morphology they can lead to proteins with highly divergent structures and functions being classed together due to certain key similarities. You certainly should be more specific. Such as your ones about fin and gill genes or about proinsulin, neither of which you have cared to address?Since you are going I thought I might use this post to review a couple of things I didn't have time to cover previously. This is a really important point, and the main reason why simply bare linking or c&p is discouraged. By putting someting into your own words you show that you have at least some understanding of how the thing works, or you are more likely to highlight gaps in your own understanding, thus allowing them to be filled. Simply cutting and pasting what someone else has written doesn't give any impression that you know what the issues are of have any substantive rebuttal, especially if you make a huge c&p which covers lots of irrelevant or tangential material as well. How does posting someone elses claims test whether they hold water, especially when you seem totally determined to deny the validity of any rebuttals which suggest that they don't in fact hold water, usually trying to bolster the first claim with another cut and paste from the site?If you write it yourself you will gain a better understanding of the subject and the people you interact with will gain an impression that you actually have some idea what you are talking about.TTFN,WKP.S. I consider this one of your greatest hits... ..in what other way can any trait be beneficial?

Why would you want to see evidence supporting such a transparent strawman?TTFN,WK