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Author | Topic: The rich heritage of radiation-induced mutations: accelerated mutation and selection | |||||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3983 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
A story in the NY Times today seems tailored for us here at Evc, putting the lie to claims that mutations cannot be beneficial ("devolutions") or are overwhelmingly likely to be deleterious.
The article discusses the successes achieved by using radiation to promote mutations in food crops, including the creation of red grapefruit, premium barley for Scotch whisky (proof of God as an evolutionary agent if anything can be), etc. I'm taking the unusual step of quoting the brief article in full here because it is exceptionally relevant to our EvC debates.
quote: Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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AdminWounded Inactive Member |
Hi Omni,
I can't see how this qualifies as a coffee house topic. If you want to just put this out there then it would be more suited to the 'links and information' or 'Creation/Evolution in the news' forum, if you want it discussed it should be put through the PNT process like any other topic. If you can tell me what you are aiming for here we can get it into the right forum, 'Coffee House' isn't here so people can ignore the PNT process when they feel like it but there are particular fora where suitable topics can be posted with requiring PNT approval and either of the two I mentioned would seem more suitable than 'Coffee House'. TTFN, AW
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3983 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
Sorry, I didn't mean to ignore the PNT process: actually had "In the News" in mind but clearly missed by a mile.
Anywhere would be fine. Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Equinox Member (Idle past 5162 days) Posts: 329 From: Michigan Joined: |
It's a great article. I proposed a topic on this too, thinking that biological (?!?) evolution would be a good place for it. I'd like to see how creationists deny that these are beneficial mutations, or how they can still maintain that beneficial mutations don't exist.
-Equinox
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kuresu Member (Idle past 2533 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
Unfortunately, it'll be pretty easy for them.
You know how they argue that just because a computer program mimics evolution (and is thus evidence for its existence because the programs are based on life) it doesn't mean evolution is right because someone had to design the program or build the computer? They'll use the same argument--it's people making the mutations, not nature. Thus, nature can't make beneficial mutations.
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AdminWounded Inactive Member |
Thread moved here from the Coffee House forum.
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Taz Member (Idle past 3312 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined: |
Omni writes:
I'm puzzled about something. Here's how I have always seen it in a nutshell. A story in the NY Times today seems tailored for us here at Evc, putting the lie to claims that mutations cannot be beneficial ("devolutions") or are overwhelmingly likely to be deleterious. (1) We know that mutations happen. We observe it all the time in laboratories and in the various populations we study. (2) Most of these mutations turn out to be either deleterious or are simply neutral. We see genetic disorders popping up all the time. (3) We do observe from time to time mutations that are actually beneficial and would actually help the individual survive a bottleneck event.
(A) We can start out with a single bacterium that we know is not resistant to anti-biotics. After we allow this bacterium to turn into whole colonies of bacteria, all descendants of the single bacterium, we introduce an antibiotic agent. Sometimes all these colonies are killed off by the antibiotics and sometimes a few individuals survive. I know this for a fact because I've done this experiment many times before in my lab. So, clearly there was a mutation somewhere along the line that was beneficial enough for some bacteria to survive the introduction of antibiotics. (B) Now, start out with an antibiotic resistant strain and do the same thing in A and see what happens. My point is what's up for debate? At least for me, inducing mutations to look for beneficial ones has been common knowledge since long before I turned away from fundamentalism. I simply don't understand why we have to keep repeating these very common knowledge stuff. What puzzles me even more is how come the mainstream press aren't helping us out by making this very common knowledge stuff more well known? What puzzles me even more more more more more is how come the more knowledgable christians who claim to obey the 10 commandments try to help us out by telling their fellow christians about this very well known fact? I mean, there are whole industries making profits out of making mutant strains. Disclaimer: Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style. He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!
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creative-evolutionist Junior Member (Idle past 5744 days) Posts: 7 Joined: |
What would interest me now is: How do hardcore Creationists argue when faced with the evidence of beneficial mutations?
For example Lederberg, J. and E. M. Lederberg, 1952. Replica plating and indirect selection of bacterial mutants. Journal of Bacteriology 63: 399-406. Is there a creationist on this forum that would like to show us that, even with the evidence at hand, there still are no beneficial mutations? And not by simply saying, that we have false data or the scientists are lying or something. Or has this argument been terminally disproven?
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