Natural Limitation to Evolutionary Processes (2/14/05)

I DIDN'T "explain it away." I accepted it as a beneficial development and I didn't describe it as broken or damaged. I simply postulated that it was a rare but probably not truly novel development in sheep.I got the mechanism wrong apparently, since it didn't arise as a merely low frequency allele in the sheep population, as I guessed, but I've also been trying to think about the chemistry involved in these gene changes, along lines that came up in the above discussion with NosyNed. Some of this appears to be simply chemically predictable, makes functional useful proteins etc., some combinations more rare than others but perfectly functional.I'm just trying to get a sense of how some can be functional and some cause disease or even neutral effects, since the theory that evolution couldn't care less doesn't do it for me.Hey, maybe this one is a novel beneficial change. I haven't said such can't exist, I just haven't seen it yet except in bacteria, and the claims for the supposed abundance of these just falls flat.And as for reading the research, usually I can't follow it so I have to rely on you guys to digest it for me. Sorry.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, but it is a question in my mind what "novel" means if it's a predictable chemical combination, however rare. Sounds like it has to be a normal part of the reproductive system, as normal as a very low-frequency allele already existing in the population. If it can arise at any time, it could have arisen at other times too when circumstances were right for it. That's not novelty, not the introduction of something new.

OK, then I'm trying to explain it away. I haven't seen that it is truly de novo, or I mean novel, if that means absolutely new, and of course I'm biased in the direction of assuming it's not until it's conclusively demonstrated that it is. Well, this may not be a big difference to you, but to me it is. An absolutely novel gene sequence -- if it's demonstrably beneficial -- demonstrably, not merely hypothetically -- and if there were truly the great abundance of these the ToE appears to assume -- would be strong support for the ToE -- which after all postulates that all life forms arose in some similar fashion, and that means many truly novel traits must be a real occurrence. A few of them wouldn't be particularly strong support, but many of them probably would, because they'd offer a basis for the development of truly new forms from old, rather than the usual variations on the Kind. A merely rare occurrence of a particular gene sequence, one that can be assumed to have occurred before, implies a built-in or designed-in basic potential, something that throws up predictable if rare variations from time to time to see if the environment will bite as it were, that is, favor its spread in the population, or select it out as an unfavorable trait -- much the way a very low-frequency allele that has always been present in a population would behave. This is perfectly compatible with creationist assumptions, whereas a great many truly brand-new useful mutations would not be. But for purposes of the distinction that is crucial for me this won't do. At least if it can't be pinned down more specifically then you can't claim that it supports the ToE assumptions. It doesn't support anything in particular until its character and incidence are more predictable. Percy in Message 222 says

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I earlier explained how beneficial mutations are inevitable

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and in Message 182 says

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Beneficial mutations are ubiquitous. Practically every gene in the human genome (and of all life in general) is the beneficiary of beneficial mutations, tons of them.

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For this ubiquity all he could offer was the usual hypothetical scenario based on the assumptions of the ToE. I have no way of judging what version I have comprehended. If I have some idea of how a process works I simply try it out. This may be frustrating for the scientists here but I don't know what else to do. I'm a creationist, I'm not going to be thinking like an evolutionist, I'm always going to be looking for any evidence that supports my view and trying to unravel the evolutionist claims that they already have it all sewn up. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

OK, an answer to your "trap" of Message 260Mutations are not necessary at all. All kinds of alternative alleles are potential in the dog genome, built in as it were, just waiting to be selected by breeders, alleles for longer stronger legs, etc etc etc. Breeders simply choose the animal that has most of what they want to breed, and keep breeding the best of each litter until they get better and better specimens. You can't get mutations to order, you just exploit what's already available. But none of this has to be the result of mutations, merely the selective breeding of alleles for the desired traits, alleles already present in the dog population or potential in the dog genome (thinking in terms of predictable protein-making sequences, which admittedly I don't really understand yet).{Edit: Seems to me I recall some sort of "law" from the dim past of my reading on these things, that says there's a certain morphological method in the development of new types; that is, you don't just get one part of the animal streamlined, but the whole body gets more streamlined. Something like that. How that works genetically I don't know, and it doesn't really affect the topic here anyway}On the other issue, I don't even want to read a post by Schraf at this point, sorry.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This raises the question again of just what mutation IS. Is it merely the occurrence of one of a certain number of possible and predictable chemical arrangements forming a particular protein along a particular sequence of bases? If so, does it ever make sense to talk about a "mistake?" Or what does that term mean as it is used by geneticists?Why wouldn't the great variety of potential functioning protein-making sequences amount to enough variety to produce the many forms seen in modern canids? Doesn't need to be exactly "built-in" then. And if mutation isn't necessarily this totally random totally novel thing, but follows a predictable pattern -- even if only predictable "stochastically" as you say, then much variation seems to me to be a strong possibility, enough to develop many types after the ark. But this is very hazy in my mind. Yes, OK, but see, I KNOW the FLood happened that way, so there HAS to be a scientific explanation for how all the types came down from that point, and maybe I'll never understand enough to get near the explanation, but that's what I'm trying to do in my muddled way nevertheless, as are all creationists who believe in the Flood. Scoffing doesn't stop us, scientific reasoning doesn't stop us, all the calculations about genetics and about how many animals could or couldn't fit in the ark, and how hot the Flood would have made things so that no one could have survived, and so on and so forth don't stop us because we know there is an explanation, it just hasn't been found yet. So if the latest explanation that has been tried won't work, we regroup and look for another. That is one possibility I've thought reasonable. Myself, I still suspect that all that dead DNA, the pseudogenes and the junk DNA, were once functioning genes. I know some have given reasons why that isn't so. I just figure further study could turn that around. Also that "mutations" that don't do anything now, probably once did. I wish there were a creationist here who had the scientific knowledge I don't have to argue all these points myself, because I know so little. And apparently I misunderstood Percy and will probably never figure that out, and I can't follow Modulous' posts on this thread very well. Yes, I'd like to see another thread started specifically on mutation. There were some posts by Mod and Crash particularly that didn't get answered that raised questions for such a thread, but I'm not up to tracking them down right now. In fact I'm having a case of insomnia which means I may sleep a lot of the day to make up for it and not be available anyway until later. But the answer is yes, I have a lot of questions about what mutations are that I'd really like to get sorted out if at all possible. I may just ask questions on such a thread, and I hope it wouldn't get too beyond the Reader's Digest level.I'm free to post on the science forums but I don't believe in ID, and I really don't like posting on the Science forums because I like to be free to bring in my Biblical presuppositions when necessary, and because I get tired of being upbraided for not meeting scientific standards. What's wrong with this forum?This thread was originally started in the science forums when I first started posting here. It was dormant for nearly a year and just got revived recently. I just moved it yesterday because Schraf was upbraiding me for not meeting scientific standards.