slevesque writes:
Yes it would qualify as a new trait. I have the feeling your are refering to the Lenski experiment, which would be a prime example to discuss this.
Ok, since you admit that being able to digest stuff you couldn't digest before qualifies as a new trait, let me present you with evidence that not only do new traits spring up because of evolution, entire genes spring up, and even new information.
Alright, on with the show!
Our topic today concerns a bacteria, that through evolution, can now digest nylon.
This is the original gene:
This gene was copied. But no new information was created, since it was a copy. This also means that one copy can mutate freely.
The next thing that happened wasn't just any mutation, but the most dramatic one we know. A
frameshift mutation. This will affect every single amino acid from the point of the frameshift onwards. An example of how this works:
Amino acids are formed by a combination of three nucleotides, for example:
|G A A | C G C|
Glutamate|Arginine
Now, when you insert a nucleotide (which is what this mutation does), it doesn't just change the amino acid it gets inserted to, but every single one after that as well, again for example we insert C into the first position:
|C G A | A C G| C
Alanine|Threonine
So much for the example.
There are 427 amino acids in the original gene. Now, creationists like to claim that the ability to digest nylon was already there in the gene, but they're wrong.
The frameshift occurred at the 33rd amino acid, altering over 92% of the gene's information. Seen here in red:
This is NOT a loss of information, however, because this gene is a copy.
The frameshift added a new sequence to the gene, seen here in green:
But not only that, it also made a new start codon at the insertion point. This means that this is an entirely new gene!
This is the entirely new gene:
And now: How much information was created by this?
There are 4 nucleotides total.So, when we take the equation from information theory:
LOG
2(4) = 2 bits (the 4 here being the total number of possibilities)
An amino acid is made by three nucleotides, so that is:
3*2 bits = 6 bits for every amino acid
since this mutation generated a sequence of 392 amino acids, we get:
392*6 bits = 2352 bits of completely new information.
The source of all this can be found
here
And the video I kinda transcribed here is found
here
Edited by Huntard, : Picture wasn't working
I hunt for the truth