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Author | Topic: Can random mutations cause an increase in information in the genome? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
This is why the mutation that helps prevent malaria also causes deadly sickle-cell anemia. It doesn't, though. You're confusing hemoglobin C with hemoglobin S. C has all the benefits of S in regards to malaria but it doesn't cause sickle-cell. That was explained to you about 10 times but you seemed to miss it each time.
Demonstrate how this isn't a valid anology. Put some holes in a cloak and you have a vest, or a cossak, which is a warmer and more effective garment than a cloak because it's more snug. Duplicate the vest - put two on - and you have an even warmer garment. A mutative modification to the arm holes might cause them to extend over the shoulders, keeping rain from flowing into the arm holes. Duplication on those features results in increasingly longer sleeves over time. Eventually you have a coat, and nobody wears cloaks anymore. And, also, you have a huge pile of modified cloaks that didn't work, couldn't be worn, or had so many holes they were useless. Nobody's saying that evolution ensures that every organism gets better over time. In fact, the fossil record proves that the ultimate result for 99% of species is extinction. Most of the products of mutation will be invisible; they won't have an effect. Most of the remaining mutations are fatal, which is why they're not around anymore. A scant few are beneficial, as has been proven to you. The result of that seems obvious to me, and to anybody not motiviated by a dogmatic need to oppose science.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
It is only logical though, that if all life arose from the first, less-complex life, that a ascension in terms of complexity was necessary be each and every life form It's not logical, no. It is merely required that some organisms have offspring of slightly greater complexity, and we observe that this is the case.
(except for the still existing simple celled organism..why is it still around again?) It's not still around. Hasn't been around for billions of years.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I guess you think I meant the same one? So, you admit that you're ignoring the example of hemoglobin C? And that you're consciously lying when you say that mutations always connote the degeneration of a function?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
If you'll look back, you'll see that I originally predicated my remarks on the assumption that Garret had simply mistaken hemoglobin C for hemoglobin S.
He informed me that that was not the case. In other words, he's aware that C is not S, that C does not have the detriments of S. Nonetheless he persists in asserting that C causes sickle-cell. If he's saying something that he's stated that he knows as false, what am I supposed to conclude? Is there a word that the admins would prefer us to use to describe someone who is knowingly promulgating a falsehood?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I don't have any dogmatic need to oppose science. I believe science where it can be verified. Yet you don't, because you oppose evolution, a verified, testable scientific model.
Everything known in science dictates that a gerbil will produce a gerbil. And that a mammal will produce a mammal, and a vertebrate will produce a vertebrate, and a metazoan will produce a metazoan, and a living thing will produce a living thing. Our classification system of living things is hierarcheal. That's a concept that seems to surprise a lot of people; it's not unsurprising that you've become confused and believe that evolution means that gerbils produce non-gerbils. The offspring of gerbils will always be considered "gerbils", just as the offspring of the original mammal species are all mammals, despite the term "mammal" encompassing a significant variety of species.
Until you can produce evidence of mutations that lead to changes above the species level That sentence has no meaning to me. Mutation is not the source of new species; merely the source of new characteristics. Speciation is the source of new species.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Regardless...I asked for evidence of changes ABOVE the species level, not at the species level. That sentence still has no meaning to me. Mutations happen at the genetic level, not at or under or above the "species" level.
The point is there is no observable evidence that suggests that speciation will ever lead to a new Order, for instance. Speciation is not the source of new orders, or classes, or other such taxa. The source of new orders, classes, or other such taxa is biologists determining that it would be more convinient to group some organisms in a new order, class, or other such taxa.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I didn't ask for evidence of MUTATIONS above the species level...but evidence for CHANGES above the species level. This still means nothing to me. The only relevant change you could be referring to is mutation (because mutations are the only heritable changes), which happens to individuals at the genetic level. It's that phrase "change above the species level" that I don't understand. Can you explain what you mean by that?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
To answer the problem of transistional forms with the response that groupings are determined by scientists and are therefore of no consequence, is a red herring. Oh, were we talking about transitional forms? You certainly didn't say so. In fact the fossil record is replete with transitional forms. Almost every organism, in fact, represents a transitional form between what preceeded it and what came after it. I believe that your difficulty lies in the fact that you seem to percieve "species" as a function of the physical characteristics of an organism, or perhaps as a function of an organism possessing the "essence" of its species. Species essentialism is a long-discredited view. The modern view recognizes species as reproductive communities; as populations connected by gene flow. Populations that have no gene flow between them are recognized as different species. That need have absolutely nothing to do with their morphological characteristics; two completely identical-looking organisms might very well represent two very different species. Two radically-different organisms might very well be part of the very same species. It's a function of gene flow, not of change in characteristics. The differing characteristics you observe among all the organisms that live on Earth are the result of individual changes at the individual, genetic level, not "change above the species level", whatever that means. (I'm hoping you can tell me what you're referring to by that phrase.)
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
The writer in the quote above points out that we do not see bacteria mutate from a single-cell form to a multi-cell form, but considering their rate of duplication, it would seem that we should. Now, for all I know, we do see this, but the claim is there, and it deals with an actual observed process. We do see this. I know that I myself have linked to a specific instance of evolved multi-cellularity on many occasions. You should know better than to post a claim you know to be false.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
There's nothing at all reasonable about theistic evolution--positing, as it does, a cruel god. Or an indifferent one, or a weak one. There would be nothing cruel about a god who created via evolution because he had no power to create otherwise. Plus - there's nothing inherently unreasonable about a cruel god. It's just not particularly pleasant a concept, is all. Plenty of religions have cruel gods, though.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
How then, can science suggest that all life arose without cause when all scientific evidence points to the fact that all causes must have an effect? But that's not true. We observe many effects that have no observable cause.
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