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Author Topic:   What is the mechanism that prevents microevolution to become macroevolution?
Equinox
Member (Idle past 5142 days)
Posts: 329
From: Michigan
Joined: 08-18-2006


Message 46 of 301 (345091)
08-30-2006 3:53 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Philip
08-30-2006 3:05 PM


Re: Large scale chromosomal changes.
Philip wrote:
quote:
I'm stating that the diversity of life requires at least 10 billion of such impossible *beneficial* mutations. EVERY genus and/or species of life seems to me to require at least one to a billion of such *impossible beneficial* mutations.
Hey, don't forget that we just talked about dozen+ beneficial mutations that we came up with without much problem.
Well, one could quibble or the estimated numbers, but taking most reasonable estimates and doing the math shows that there really isn’t a problem.
Take people. We have about 3 billion base pairs. That has to replicate several times for each generation (you have to make the germ line cell, it has to replicate as an embryo, up to the germ line cell for the next generation, etc). So for each generation you have to have billions of copying events. Even if your copying is 99.999999% accurate, you’ll still have 1 in a billion mistakes, and that means at least a dozen mutations per generation. I’m sure that most of them will be neutral (say, in non-coding DNA), but even if only a few are beneficial, that’s still quite a few.
So how many generations do we have? For humans, we can guess a generation has been around 20 years for the past 500,000 years or so. So that’s around 20,000 generations. Before that it was probably shorter, say 10 years for the range of 5 Mya to 0.4 Mya, giving another 460,000 generations.
I’m going to drop to an estimate of 5 years for the time from 30Mya to 5 Mya (primates), so that gives another 5,000,000 generations.
Now maybe the genome was smaller? Any biologists specializing in mammal genomes have input? I’m guessing the generation length is just 2 years for the time from 100 to 30 Mya, giving 35,000,000 generations.
Now let’s add those up. I get about 40,000,000 generations. If you have an average population over all that time of, say, 2 million individuals, then that’s 2 million times 40 million, or 80 trillion (80,000,000,000,000) births. Based on my guess of a dozen mutations per birth, thats 100,000,000,000,000 mutations. Sure, only a few percent or less are beneficial, but one tenth of 1% is still 100 billion, and still a huge, huge number.
Plus, don’t forget that these mutations need not be sequential. You can evolve features in parallel, getting a mutation here or there when they occur. For instance, in changing a land mammal into a whale, the nostril can be moving up the head, while the teeth are changing, while the legs are shortening, while the hair is thinning, while the tail is strengthening, etc. These can all happen concurrently.
So even with people there seems to be plenty of room in the math. Try wiggling my numbers around, try a shorter or longer generation, or a different copying accuracy (though we have hard data on that), or whatever, just for the fun of it.
And that was only going from mammals to humans. Going from worms to, well, worms can allow for 5 times as much time.
Oh, and try doing this for insects, or shrimp, or something with a short generation time. There you have several generations a year, and can start back in the Paleozoic. Plus, your number of individuals in each generation can easily number in the billions. Wow, putting those numbers in easily gives numbers a million times as high.
But we, as humans, aren’t used to dealing with numbers like this. That’s why we think at first “wow, how could that many good mutations accumulate?”. But when doing the math, we see that it’s easy.
Have a fun day-
Equinox
Edited by Equinox, : added concurrant mutation paragraph

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Philip, posted 08-30-2006 3:05 PM Philip has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 51 by Philip, posted 08-30-2006 7:21 PM Equinox has replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 47 of 301 (345096)
08-30-2006 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by mjfloresta
08-30-2006 11:10 AM


Re: Faith Logic
I gave you the explanation of speciation that almost every biologist would agree with. How that beomes "irrational fanaticism" i'm not too sure.
Actually, your description of what happens during speciation is very wrong. So much so, in fact, that I'm surprised none of the biologists on EvC Forum have pointed it out yet.
You stated:
We start with a specific amount of genetic material within a population; As the population speciates, the genetic information gets divided up amongst the various isolated populations.
This is a very misleading way of putting it. The "genetic information" (whatever that is) in the population doesn't get "divided up". Rather, a statistical sampling of the available alleles in the population are sorted into the "new" population.
Here's an analogy: say you have ten pairs of socks, nine brown and black pairs, and one bright orange pair (that your Aunt Gertrude gave you for Christmas). You take off on a business trip, leaving at 3 am. Since you are a true procrastinator, you didn't pack beforehand. Not wanting to wake your spouse/best friend/significant other up, you don't turn the light on as you throw stuff into your bag. You grab four pairs of socks at random. What are the odds you'll grab all brown or black pairs? Pretty good. Is it still possible you might have accidently picked up the orange pair? Absolutely. (With apologies to Richard Dawkins).
Same thing happens when a population splits prior to speciation. A subset of all the alleles available in the pool will "sort" into the new population. This DOES NOT "remove" anything from the source population (except very possibly in extremely rare instances where a "unique" allele was the only one of its kind - like the orange socks). The same alleles are still available in the source population - and most of them are going to be present in the "new" population as well.
Of course there's a lot of redundancy; that's why speciation is normally a slow process.
This makes no sense whatsoever. Could you please expand on what you are attempting to convey, here? Thanks.
Let's suppose we have a species that possesses 30,000 genes. Two populations form from this species that become geographically isolated. Originally, there's a lot of genetic redundancy (or overlap). So let's suppose that of the original 30,000 genes, all the alleles are present for 29,990 genes. But for a small number of genes (10 in this case) there is geographic isolation, no overlap between populations. This occurs purely by chance, remember. So, is there a reduction of genetic diversity? Not really, the sum population still possesses the full diversity of alleles among its 30,000 genes. However there has been a reduction of genetic diversity as seen in each population.
This entire last bit is utterly wrong. In the first place, the population that splits off (to use laymen's terms) doesn't remove genes from the gene pool. It might - in absolutely exceptional circumstances - remove an extremely rare allele, but it most definitely doesn't remove genes.
Beyond that, if the parent and daughter populations remain separated, they will both continue to generate new alleles. Mutation and recombination provide new variations/alleles, and differences in selection pressures or drift between the parent and daughter populations may emphasize or filter out these different alleles. Ultimately, the two populations - unless whatever barrier is removed - may differentiate enough that they can be identified as new varieties, subspecies, or even species. Even if there is some gene flow between the populations, it may be so reduced that the two populations follow separate or separating evolutionary trajectories. We see this in the existence of hybrid zones between different populations with limited gene flow (sort of "pre-speciation").
Anyway, I doubt strongly whether any biologist worthy of the name would accept what you described. Primarily because that's not even close to what really happens.

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Replies to this message:
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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 48 of 301 (345103)
08-30-2006 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by Quetzal
08-30-2006 4:04 PM


Re: Faith (in) Logic
In my own defense I can only say that streching across a recent conversation here (on EVC) over a measure (metric(by me)) of "genetic" information I have set my own problem to show
quote:
George Boole An Investigation of The Laws of THought On Which Are Founded The Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilites
that trichotomies are not simple links on EVC nor metaphysical fanices substituted with words.
Close readers of EvC may pine for the day I show what (1-x) or (1+x) or (-1-x) are determinatively and genetically extant when NOT a simple extension of my armed arm and have every right to deride simple claims, such as mine, that the day is coming.
If it doesnt Percy would have been correct to think waaaaay back that "bootcamp" would have done me good. I know he was wrong then. But now...with "theological creationism and ID" as a thread head, well... all is not biology as much as I wish it was.

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 Message 47 by Quetzal, posted 08-30-2006 4:04 PM Quetzal has not replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 49 of 301 (345139)
08-30-2006 6:10 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Philip
08-30-2006 3:05 PM


Re: Large scale chromosomal changes.
What do you mean "occasional"?
Well in bacterial systems dupliction of large gene clusters happens all the time due to multiple copies of genes in the epigenomic DNA of plasmids. In multicellular organisms it is rare but by no means unheard of.
From the invertebrates through the vertebrate lineage comparative genomics suggest that there have been 2 clear rounds of whole genome duplication in the early development of the vertebrates (Dehal and Boore, 2005).
I'm not sure of rates of single gene or chromosome duplications, I'll see what I can find.
TTFN,
WK

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 Message 44 by Philip, posted 08-30-2006 3:05 PM Philip has not replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 50 of 301 (345167)
08-30-2006 6:49 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Faith
08-29-2006 8:32 PM


are bottlenecks tied to speciation?
THAT'S WHAT SPECIATION DOES, IT SEVERELY REDUCES GENETIC DIVERSITY. That's what a bottleneck is, severely reduced genetic diversity.
I don't think these - speciation and bottlenecks - are necessarily related.
Speciation may cause a bottleneck, if it is of the founding population variety and the population is small.
A bottleneck event may cause speciation, as in the Yucatan meteor extinction event and the subsequent rapid speciation of many types to fill the voids left by extinct species (most well know would be foraminifera)
But does one necessarily follow from the other?
If the bottleneck is caused by a random event that does not select one set of genes over others, it could leave behind nearly as much diversity as there was before, diversity that would be quickly recirculated into the population as a whole, and the missing amount made up with subsequent mutation rates, but the population could still be the same species generations after the bottleneck event has passed.
If speciation occurs in a whole population through drift over time then there is no bottleneck involved and the amount of diversity in any one generation is the same as the one before and after.
Or speciation where a population divides into two or more subpopulations that no longer mate -- there is no loss in diversity there, as it is divided between the two populations.
There are other factors involve that make a strict relationship problematical, imh(ysa)o.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Faith, posted 08-29-2006 8:32 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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Philip
Member (Idle past 4723 days)
Posts: 656
From: Albertville, AL, USA
Joined: 03-10-2002


Message 51 of 301 (345198)
08-30-2006 7:21 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by Equinox
08-30-2006 3:53 PM


Re: Large scale chromosomal changes.
Thanks Equinox for your coherent math; we might both agree:
1) *Raw beneficial mutations* (including *parallel ones*) (chromosomal splitting, coupling, doubling etc.) must be a *mind-boggling* number vs. merely "occasional" mutations ... for macro-evolution to be feasible at any level.
2) You're completely ON TOPIC as you ponder *raw mutations* only (vs. NS). (Thank you for NOT bringing NS into the equation)
But remember, I'm playing totally against any such mutations (at any level) as having any real 'survival benefit' to account for (1) speciation or (2) *higher-life forms.
Such mutation may have been reported by post-Darwinists, the pope, science authority, the savior, and/or an angel from Persia .
But scientifically, proclaiming mutational mechanisms as unraveling the cosmos seem a bit silly (to me) to entertain on any level . e.g.,
. Quarks unraveling into Photons and sub-atomic particles
. Inflationary pre-Big-Bang events unraveling into (E=mCC) equations and laws
. Molecules unraveling into chromosomes, proteins, carbohydrates, epithelia, etc.
. Life-forms unraveling in every niche from beneficial mutations
. Souls unraveling from plankton mutations
. Etc.
Fast-forward such pseudo-mutations (if you will) and we have the *scientific*-fable of the mega-ToE.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Equinox, posted 08-30-2006 3:53 PM Equinox has replied

Replies to this message:
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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 52 of 301 (345335)
08-31-2006 2:07 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Philip
08-30-2006 7:21 PM


Re: Large scale chromosomal changes.
Equinox's calculations seem to be essentially base on nucleotide substitution rates. Consequently the 'mutations' he is discussing ar of a completely different character to the large scale chromosomal ones you insist on focusing on.
The problem is that there are lots of things in the world that people find 'mind-boggling' because people have limited minds which are easily 'boggled'. The degree to which something 'boggles' your mind is not an accurate way of measuring whether it is likely to be true or not.
But scientifically, proclaiming mutational mechanisms as unraveling the cosmos seem a bit silly (to me) to entertain on any level . e.g.,
Pretty much everything you say after this point is either just made up or so badly reworded to fit whatever point you are trying to make as to make it virtually nonsensical.
Unraveling has a specific meaning which completely fails to apply to any of the elements you discuss.
mega-ToE
The 'mega-ToE' is a creationist strawman in which creationists have strung together all the bits of modern science that they don't like and decided to label them all evolution to keep things simple.
TTFN,
WK

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 Message 51 by Philip, posted 08-30-2006 7:21 PM Philip has not replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 53 of 301 (345338)
08-31-2006 2:33 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by anglagard
08-29-2006 8:42 PM


Re: Faith Logic
Faith shouts:
Yes, of course. THAT'S WHAT SPECIATION DOES, IT SEVERELY REDUCES GENETIC DIVERSITY.
So the act of speciation, which creates more species, means less genetic diversity. Then according to such logic, an infinite amount of species would have the least genetic diversity, while one species would have the most genetic diversity. Does that also mean that an infinite amount of numbers would have the least numerical diversity, while one number has the most numerical diversity?
Guess up is down when you can't tell the difference.
This has been discussed quite a bit at EvC and it's not as nutty as you are making it out to be. I believe MJFloresta goes on to explain this quite well, but I'll try it myself. Sometimes I state it too baldly as I did above, but sometimes I'm clearer that I mean that this is a trend. It may take a lot of time, many generations, or in the case of drastic population splits, which is what a bottleneck is, no time at all.
The tendency of all the evolutionary processes EXCEPT MUTATION -- and recombination, but in a different way -- is to the reduction of genetic diversity through the elimination of alleles from the population. Recombination of populations may provide a temporary increase, and in fact change the character of the combined population in a way that could be called speciation, but this does not involve anything novel, merely the shuffling of allelic possibilities that are already present in both populations. Only mutation can introduce something truly new, and of course we challenge the idea that it does this, if at all, to a degree that would overcome the depleting effects of population splitting.
Now, population splits don't always lead to new species, but they are always working in that direction. In the case of ring species, for example, they are actually called species because they don't interbreed. You can identify each group by specific differences from the others. These differences are caused by the differences in allele frequencies brought about by their separation from a previous population. The old population may also have new frequencies and therefore change after the split too, but that depends on how many left.
The split may do no more than shuffle the frequencies of the alleles with no actual loss of alleles, but that depends on how much the population is split. A very small number leaving a big population is not likely to have all the alleles of the parent population, so they experience an actual loss of allelic information in the new population as a whole. Then alleles that weren't much expressed in the parent population may become prominent and create a new phenotype distinguishing it from the previous popuolation, perhaps quite dramatically.
When it leads to a population that doesn't interbreed with the parent population this is called "speciation." The point is this speciation is brought about by the loss of allelic information. Without this loss there would not be any speciation at all because all the same alleles would continue to keep the phenotype the same as in the parent population. {Edit: OK I overstated this again. The change may be brought about without an actual loss of alleles, merely a change in frequencies, but often there is such a loss, as when the new population is appreciably smaller than the parent population.}
I'm talking about what happens when populations split. Basically the same thing happens with any clear selection process that isolates members of a population from others. Natural selection may do it by favoring a few when all the others die (antibiotic resistance in bacteria happens this way), or migration of small portions of a population to form a new population, as in the case of ring species, or quite a drastic split such as bottleneck. Bottleneck is merely the most drastic of the processes, but they all tend in the same direction. Again, the smaller the new population the greater the loss of alleles in the new population as opposed to the parent population, the less genetic diversity therefore, and the more the phenotypes differentiate and tend toward speciation.
That's what the splitting processes do. These processes are called "evolutionary processes" in most sources I've found. They are recognized as leading to speciation, just as the formula about evolution as a change in allelic frequency is. What seems to be left out of the formula is this general tendency to allelic depletion and reduced genetic diversity over time.
The other processes are immigration or recombination and mutation. The former, as mentioned, just shuffles the alleles together and may create a new phenotype, but without adding anything new. It's a sort of stasis.
Mutation, again, is the only possible way new information could be added to a population, and that's why attention then goes to the nature of mutation, whether it can really support this role.
{EDIT: All this assumes a given number of alleles in the total gene pool of the kind. Mutation is going to alter this number of course, but that has to be discussed as a separate topic to avoid confusing things.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : various grammatical improvements for clarity
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 55 by Equinox, posted 08-31-2006 12:46 PM Faith has replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 54 of 301 (345424)
08-31-2006 12:01 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Wounded King
08-30-2006 2:42 AM


Re: recognizing a bottleneck
Wow! Did you even read the whole abstract? They cover 'microsatellites, Alu insertions, and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), as well as single genetic loci, including -globin, dystrophin, and ZFX', and that is only the autosomal elements. They also refer to analyses of mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosme.
No, of course I didn't read the whole abstract -- I don't know the terminology well enough to read that much. I copied out the whole paper and cleaned it up to make it easier to read but I don't suppose I'm going to be getting through it any time soon. Really, you shouldn't just give a link to such a technical paper. You should explain clearly what it says in ordinary English when you are talking to non-scientists.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Wounded King, posted 08-30-2006 2:42 AM Wounded King has replied

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 Message 57 by Wounded King, posted 08-31-2006 1:21 PM Faith has replied

Equinox
Member (Idle past 5142 days)
Posts: 329
From: Michigan
Joined: 08-18-2006


Message 55 of 301 (345433)
08-31-2006 12:46 PM
Reply to: Message 53 by Faith
08-31-2006 2:33 AM


Re: Faith Logic
Faith wrote:
quote:
When it leads to a population that doesn't interbreed with the parent population this is called "speciation." The point is this speciation is brought about by the loss of allelic information. Without this loss there would not be any speciation at all because all the same alleles would continue to keep the phenotype the same as in the parent population. {Edit: OK I overstated this again. The change may be brought about without an actual loss of alleles, merely a change in frequencies, but often there is such a loss, as when the new population is appreciably smaller than the parent population.}
Um, you still have your mutation blinders on. Speciation could occur without any loss of alleles. Simply have enough mutations so as to prevent interbreeding. These mutations could all be made by first copying genes, then only adding functions in the copies, thus the entire original genome is still there.
Why ignore this possibility?
quote:
What seems to be left out of the formula is this general tendency to allelic depletion and reduced genetic diversity over time.
Yes. That’s left out because it’s a fantasy. Speciation is a poor place to look for a “loss of genetic information”. Why? Because it only works if you put your creationist blinders on and look only at the little split off group that speciates, and then completely look away before accumulated mutations add more genetic information in the form of new alleles that weren’t in either starting population. You need the blinders because if you look at both populations, the loss is little if any. Many, if not most speciation events happen with one small group leaving a big group. The big group hasn’t lost any genetic information, since it’s big. The little group has, but again, if you look at both groups, no loss. Then, both groups ADD genetic information through mutation, resulting in an overall increase in genetic information.
Now that I’ve posted it twice, do you understand how one mutation can make an extra copy of a stretch of DNA, then later mutations can change that new stretch, resulting in new alleles without the loss of the one they came from?
Looking at the speciation process and claiming that speciation causes a loss (and not a gain) of genetic information seems difficult to me.
A better place to argue for the loss of genetic information is clearly the extinction of a species. No one argues that they happen, and that they happen a lot. After all, over 99% of the species that have ever lived are extinct. And when a species goes extinct, ALL of the genetic information that made them different from surviving species is gone.
quote:
The tendency of all the evolutionary processes EXCEPT MUTATION is to the reduction of genetic diversity through the elimination of alleles from the population.
The hours of the day are dark EXCEPT for those during the day. The only sources of light during human prehistory were candles and fires (again EXCEPT daytime, which is against my starting assumptions, so we can discuss it later). So without much light, eyes clearly don’t have a lot of use. All sensing processes work to sense something that’s there often, and so eye’s clearly can’t have evolved (nor been divinely designed) for sensing light. I can’t understand how biologists and scientists try to maintain that eyes function for sensing light. The whole “theory” of mega-eyesight is obviously just a fable made up by evil atheists.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by Faith, posted 08-31-2006 2:33 AM Faith has replied

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Equinox
Member (Idle past 5142 days)
Posts: 329
From: Michigan
Joined: 08-18-2006


Message 56 of 301 (345434)
08-31-2006 12:49 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by Philip
08-30-2006 7:21 PM


Re: Large scale chromosomal changes.
Philip wrote:
quote:
Thanks Equinox for your coherent math; we might both agree:
1) *Raw beneficial mutations* (including *parallel ones*) (chromosomal splitting, coupling, doubling etc.) must be a *mind-boggling* number vs. merely "occasional" mutations ... for macro-evolution to be feasible at any level.
You’re welcome! : )
Yes, the total number is “mind boggling”, but that’s consistent with them being “occasional”. After all, something that is “occasional” for millions of years easily adds up to “mind boggling” numbers - especially when population and WK’s point about “boggling” are considered. to WK- I focused my rough estimate calcs on the simple mutations only because I don’t have data on the frequency of the larger replication type mutations. Of course, they happen too.
For instance, breech births are only “occasional”. I’ve witnessed births, I know the details of dozens of births from family and friends, and I’ve never directly see or talked about an actual breech birth. However, over the past few thousand years, with a human population in the millions that whole time, I’m sure there has been a truly mind boggling number of breech births.
quote:
But remember, I'm playing totally against any such mutations (at any level) as having any real 'survival benefit' to account for (1) speciation or (2) *higher-life forms.
OK, are you saying that beneficial mutations don’t happen? If so, then what about the baker’s dozen or so we already discussed? Or, are you saying that they do happen, but don’t cause speciation? How could they not? Or, are you saying that do happen, and they do lead to speciation, but that they don’t give rise to “higher” animals? If so, what do you mean by “higher”? If you mean "more complex", then why should some of the new varieties not be more complex? (after all, some will be less complex and some more complex).
I’m afraid that after that, your post unravels, as WK pointed out.
Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.
Edited by Equinox, : typo

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 Message 51 by Philip, posted 08-30-2006 7:21 PM Philip has not replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 57 of 301 (345444)
08-31-2006 1:21 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by Faith
08-31-2006 12:01 PM


Overly technical references
If you don't understand the terms and teminology then just ask for an explanation. I like nothing better than discussing this sort of stuff in detail.
Instead of asking you rattle of a reply as if you understand when the content of your reply shows that you don't. No one is going to think you are stupid for not understanding a technical article, or even its abstract, but to continue to debate it when you know that you haven't understood it seems ridiculous.
If you want me to explain this paper in greater detail it might be better to start another thread as it may be slightly derailing for this one.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by Faith, posted 08-31-2006 12:01 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 58 by Faith, posted 08-31-2006 1:34 PM Wounded King has replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 58 of 301 (345449)
08-31-2006 1:34 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Wounded King
08-31-2006 1:21 PM


Re: Overly technical references
If you want me to explain this paper in greater detail it might be better to start another thread as it may be slightly derailing for this one.
Well, that's a reason not to ask questions about it. I don't really want a whole new thread or an extended sidetrack in this thread either. The last two threads I tried to start for the purpose of getting a handle on some technical information backfired in very odd ways. Yours on mutation was way over my head and not really focused on beneficial mutations, mine became a debate which I hadn't wanted to happen, and the one on recognizing geological time periods has become geology 101 and may never get to recognizing time periods.
I tend to expect that it should be possible to give some simple explanations I could follow right here in context, a few paragraphs describing in layman's language just what they covered and why it matters. Struggling through the paper on my own I don't really see anything that directly deals with what we are discussing here.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 59 of 301 (345452)
08-31-2006 1:39 PM
Reply to: Message 55 by Equinox
08-31-2006 12:46 PM


Re: Faith Logic
Listen, depletion of genetic diversity is a real problem faced by conservationists. What is a fantasy -- utterly without evidence, simply assumed -- is this idea that mutation drives evolution. The reason I leave it out is to bring to the fore the actual effect of the OTHER "evolutionary processes" which do reduce genetic diversity. Mutation needs to be discussed separately.
Just wanted to say this much now. I will try to get back to your post later.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 55 by Equinox, posted 08-31-2006 12:46 PM Equinox has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by crashfrog, posted 08-31-2006 9:21 PM Faith has replied

Equinox
Member (Idle past 5142 days)
Posts: 329
From: Michigan
Joined: 08-18-2006


Message 60 of 301 (345460)
08-31-2006 1:58 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by Faith
08-31-2006 1:34 PM


Re: Overly technical references
Faith wrote:
quote:
The last two threads I tried to start for the purpose of getting a handle on some technical information backfired in very odd ways. ... I tend to expect that it should be possible to give some simple explanations I could follow right here in context, a few paragraphs describing in layman's language just what they covered and why it matters.
I have to support faith on this one. I saw some of those other threads, and I too was unsatisfied with what could have been a relatively straightforward, systematic explanation. I think this is something we do a poor job at as a scientific community. We (meaning all people who understand science) generally do a poor job of communicating how things work to the general population. I saw it again in spades last week when I heard person after person say things like "they are so evil for saying Pluto isn't a planet - it's in our atmosphere like the other planets after all..." or some such.
We can do a better job. As a science educator myself, I have to say that we aren't doing very well, and we even have someone here who has outright asked for a simple explanation. I have very limited time, but I tried to help a little with my post about 4 different kinds of mutations. Faith, was that post understandable?
Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.

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 Message 58 by Faith, posted 08-31-2006 1:34 PM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by PaulK, posted 09-01-2006 3:12 AM Equinox has not replied

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