Adaptive mutations: Evidence of an ID mechanism?

Why would you say this? Environmental factors would have a huge factor in natural selection. Animals in northern climes having thicker coats. Deep ocean fish developing ability to make light. Did anyone state the organism "knows"? If it is a beneficial mutation they breed and pass it on. If not beneficial they wont breed as prevalently. I thought this was fairly simple basic stuff.

Yes, robinrohan insists natural selection is so powerful that it dictates what the mutations will be instead of merely selecting from among them. I am asking him to show the mechanism by which natural selection causes the organism to seemingly know ahead of time what mutations to mutate.

Where did robinrohan insist on that? Or have you confused him with Rrhain?

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Impeach Bush.

Yep, I think I did confuse the two. Meant Rrhain.

I think the confusion arises from Rrhain using a technically accurate but unusual formulation of what natural selection is.It is a reasonable generalisation to say that Natural Selection comes about as the sum of the interactions of the environment with a genome. This covers a very wide breadth of things all of which are subsumed into a general process which results in some organisms passing on their genetic material more frequently than others.Rrhain seems to be taking this and reducing it to its fundamentals. If general natural selection is the sum of a variety of environmental interactions then any individual interaction of an environmental factor with the genome must be in some way a part of this selective process and therefore a selective pressure, although of what magnitude wil vary considerably.If we consider these environmental elements to be selective factors then an interaction of an environmental constituent, such as 5-bromouracil, which actually changes the genome could arguably be thought of as a selective pressure which acts directly upon the genome.It would also satisfy a definiton by which selective pressures are those factors which lead to changes in allele frequency over generations.So at a reductionist level what Rrhain suggests is an arguable position, but it is certainly not how natural selection is commonly viewed.The specificity of the 5-bromouracil driven mutations is only in terms of the bases involved and their mutated counterparts, it is not in the form of a specific mutation at a specific locus in a specific gene.TTFN,WK

randman responds to me:

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OK, explain the mechanism by which natural selection tells the organism what to mutate, not merely selecting for the mutations.

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Asked and answered. Read my posts.

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Also, I am well aware that environmental factors can cause mutations, though generally harmful, but those sorts of environmental factors are not natural selection, right?

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Wrong.And I notice you once again bring up the old silliness of "mutations are bad." No, mutuations are neutral, by and large. You never notice that you have them. But even if we assume that most mutations you can see are deleterious (which is not exactly a reasonable assumption since you only notice mutations that cause bad things, you never think to question the genome of people who don't have problems), such a scenario is irrelevant because only such mutations are selected against. The beneficial and neutral mutations are selected for.

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I will be looking for your mechanism by which the organism "knows" in advance what to mutate.

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(*sigh*)I didn't say the organism knows. I said WE should know. Given an environmental condition and a genomic expression, we should be able to predict certain mutations that would result in a higher differential success. Sometimes, however, those environmental pressures can be so great that only a single mutation could possibly be of any use.I notice, however, that we're arguing about evolutionary processes, not "intelligent design." So do you admit that what we're seeing is evolution? After all, these are replicatable experiments that can be done in a lab. Has god...excuse me, the "unknown intelligence" decided to put himself in the box and be tested? God...pardon...the "unknown intelligence" has decided to behave in a consistent manner in conjunction with our personal whims? We can force it to act?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Wounded King responds to me:

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The specificity of the 5-bromouracil driven mutations is only in terms of the bases involved and their mutated counterparts, it is not in the form of a specific mutation at a specific locus in a specific gene.

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Indeed. We would have to go to the papers being referenced to deal with the specifics they were observing. I only brought up 5-bromouracil as a simplistic example.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

I still don't see your answer on how natural selection dictates the mutations in advance.

I don't think that he's saying that. I think you've misread his original post (possibly due to being poorly worded) and trapped him into a bit of a strawman.Or maybe you got it right, and I've got it wrong.Either way, I believe the correct position is this:While "Mutations" happen at random (ie not caused by natural selection/designer/etc), there are more common mutations and less common mutations (for example webbed fingers/toes are not that unusual, while an extra row of teeth is hardly every seen).

Nuggins, I asked him point blank and he answered that selection does cause the mutations. He even went on to say. I think he's pretty clear. It still isn't clear to me how natural selection causes mutations and not just selects for them but that's what he claims.

I saw that but I read it differently I read this by as I would if I changed the word "mutation" for "changes".I don't think that the pressures can "cause" these changes, but I do think that they can select for them heavily.Now, it may be that you are 100% correct, and that he honestly meant that the pressures cause the mutations.If so, I'd like to hear how as well.

I don't think looking at mutation at an individual level is that useful. A creature with a beneficial mutation could certainly be killed without passing that mutation on. It's more useful to consider how a mutation may statistically alter the chances of survival for members of a population.For example, consider a mutation that allows a gazelle to run faster and escape a predator. Gazelles with that mutation could still certainly be killed (in a variety of ways) and never pass the mutation on. However, if you take a large population sample and look at it over time ( a long period of time) gazelles that run faster will have a statistically higher chance of survival. Over long periods of time the percentage of the population that can run faster should increase (assuming that running fast is a key ability for survival)...We can observe this in people today. There are people in certain areas of africa that have a much higher concentration of fast-twitch muscle fiber than the average person. In addition, western africans are in general much better distance runners than the average person.

I understand NS is after the fact. The mutations would occur and be selected for. Adaptive mutations refers to the idea that in some bacteria, they seem to mutate in response to the need, ahead of the fact in other words.