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Author | Topic: is the advancement of macro evolution without hick up? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SHEKINAH Junior Member (Idle past 5168 days) Posts: 8 Joined: |
If an animal mates with another animal not of its exact species, the result will be a sterile creature (e.g. a horse mating with a donkey produces a sterile mule). If animals of a given species mate and produce an abnormal offspring (i.e. a mutant), it also is sterile. Therefore, how could the macro evolutionary process advance? How could a "mutant" (i.e. advances in form) reproduce? It would first have to be fertile itself. It would have to find a sexually compatible mate who was also fertile during its relatively miniscule life span on the overall evolutionary time scale. Thirdly, their offspring would also have to be fertile and be able to continue the advance. So if single celled animals formed in the primordial soup and they were asexual (not have either male or female characteristics, but reproducing by themselves, how would they advance to a hermaphroditic state (having both male and female sexual organs) and then to the higher orders of animals which almost always have distinct male and female reproductive organs? All in-between states are sterile.
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Admin Director Posts: 13042 From: EvC Forum Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Thread copied here from the is the advancement of macro evolution without hick up? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.
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DC85 Member Posts: 876 From: Richmond, Virginia USA Joined: |
it also is sterile. Therefore, how could the macro evolutionary process advance? The same way the "microevolutionary" process does.These changes are happening to the entire population as these very small changes add up you end up with new species. You agree "microevoultion" happens correct? These small mutations are too small to cause problems with reproduction and over time these small changes add up. Evolution doesn't happen in jumps. One population is cut off from the other and the entire new population evolves.
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
Hi Shekinah,
Let's take a look at your analysis;
If an animal mates with another animal not of its exact species, the result will be a sterile creature (e.g. a horse mating with a donkey produces a sterile mule). Well... that's almost true. Hybrid animals are usually, but not always, sterile. For reference, there is a list of some animal hybrids here; Hybrid (biology) - Wikipedia Note that many are fertile.
If animals of a given species mate and produce an abnormal offspring (i.e. a mutant), it also is sterile. That's just not correct. A mutation is simply a novel DNA sequence. A "mutant" is an organism that has DNA sequences that did not originate with either parent. Generally the term "mutant" is only used to refer to those individuals whose mutation has caused them to differ noticeably from the rest of their population. Strictly speaking though, all of us are mutants, on average we have about two or three novel mutations, DNA sequences that were not present in our parents. These are the result of DNA copying errors that take place during the production of sex cells (meiosis). Mutations do not usually prevent reproduction. Most mutations are neutral and have no effect. Since the rest of your argument follows on from this error, I would say that I have answered your questions; mutations do not usually make organisms sterile. Mutate and Survive "A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod
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Taz Member (Idle past 3320 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined:
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SHEKINAH writes:
I'll explain this in a non-biological way with the hope that you will honestly try to understand what evolution really is. If an animal mates with another animal not of its exact species, the result will be a sterile creature (e.g. a horse mating with a donkey produces a sterile mule). If animals of a given species mate and produce an abnormal offspring (i.e. a mutant), it also is sterile. Therefore, how could the macro evolutionary process advance? How could a "mutant" (i.e. advances in form) reproduce? It would first have to be fertile itself. It would have to find a sexually compatible mate who was also fertile during its relatively miniscule life span on the overall evolutionary time scale. Thirdly, their offspring would also have to be fertile and be able to continue the advance. So if single celled animals formed in the primordial soup and they were asexual (not have either male or female characteristics, but reproducing by themselves, how would they advance to a hermaphroditic state (having both male and female sexual organs) and then to the higher orders of animals which almost always have distinct male and female reproductive organs? All in-between states are sterile. Imagine yourself living in Los Angeles, CA. One day you decide to walk eastward. If you keep walking and walking, step by step, eventually you will reach Las Vegas. If you keep walking in the east direction, you will eventually reach Chicago. If you're persistent enough, you will reach New York. You then realizes that it just took you 2 years to walk from California to New York. Note: Look up thefatmanwalking on google search. Of course it is ridiculous to say that you took a step from Los Angeles to Los Vegas. It is also equally ridiculous to say that you took one single step from Las Vegas to Chicago and another step to go from Chicago to New York. There are many steps in between and it took you a long long time. Among biologists, there is no difference between macro and micro evolution as far as the mechanics go. Micro evolution happens. This is a fact. There is no dispute about this. We observe it everyday. Macro evolution when you add up all the micro evolution that happened over long periods of time. Looking back at the walking example, you can have two different terms to describe the same thing. We can say that you taking a step is called micro stepping. Adding up all your micro steppings and you end up with macro steppings, from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, from Las Vegas to Chicago, and from Chicago to New York. Again, it requires many steps in between to get from one such location to another. And just like walking, macro evolution requires many many many many mutations and micro evolutions. I used walking to demonstrate to you how evolution works because walking is the simplest parallel I can think of. Now that hopefully you've understood the basics of it, let me point to you a more direct parallel. The evolution of language is a direct parallel to the evolution of life. All modern day romance languages originated from one single language: ancient Latin. The famous romance language you might recognize are French, Spanish, and Italian. At this point, you might ask yourself how these languages could be related. And it's even harder to imagine that at one point in time all these languages were one language. Small "mutations" of words and phrases over very long periods of time eventually isolated certain groups from each other. They once all spoke ancient Latin and now they speak many languages. The changes that occur in the evolution of language are so small that isolation between populations happens very gradually. An Australian and an American, while having different accents and different phrases for certain expressions, if isolated from each other for thousands of years, will likely result in different languages all together, just like how ancient Latin resulted in all the romance languages we have today. So, to sum it up, your questions make no sense at all because that's simply not how evolution works. What you call macro evolution is simply the accumulation of very minute changes in biological life over vast amounts of time (eons). Whole populations evolve, not individuals. In fact, if you had taken high school biology you would know that that's the first thing they teach you. The smallest unit that could evolve is a population. Individuals can't evolve. Hope that helps.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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You are being confused by a naive idea of species. You are implicitly taking "is the same species as" to be what mathematicians would call a transitive relation like "has the same number of legs as". So if Adrian has the same number of legs as Beth who has the same number of legs as Charles who has the same number of legs as Dawn who has the same number of legs as Edward who has the same number of legs as Francine, who has the same number of legs as George who has the same number of legs as Heidi, then it follows that Adrian has the same number of legs as Heidi.
But a relation does not have to be transitive. Consider the relation "lives in the same neighborhood as". It is perfectly possible for Adrian to live in the same neighborhood as Beth, who lives in the same neighborhood as Charles who lives in the same neighborhood as Dawn who lives in the same neighborhood as Edward who lives in the same neighborhood as Francine who lives in the same neighborhood as George who lives in the same neighborhood as Heidi --- and yet for Adrian and Heidi to live in different neighborhoods. "Is the same species as" is a relation of the second kind. One can see this by considering that for two organisms to be the same species, they do not have to have identical genomes, just genomes in the same "genetic neighborhood", as it were. --- About the evolution of sex --- there are organisms which can either reproduce sexually or asexually. Anlso, there are organisms which can reproduce asexually or in a manner that involves lateral gene transfer, which may be considered a more primitive form of sex.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4669 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
Hi Granny,
I don't know where you got your numbers. But humans have between 300-600 point mutations (Edit: actually 100-300) per person per generation. Add to that all the other types of mutations and you have more then ''two three novel mutations ... not present in our parents''. Also every mutations has an effect, even if it is very very very small. So truely neutral mutations don't exist. Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.
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Meldinoor Member (Idle past 4837 days) Posts: 400 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
slevesque writes: Also every mutations has an effect, even if it is very very very small. So truely neutral mutations don't exist. Nonsense. DNA is a very degenerate code, where the same amino acids can be written in several ways. Glycine for example can be written using codons: GGA, GGC, GGG or GGU They all make glycine. So what is the effect of a point mutation changing GGA to GGU? Respectfully, -Meldinoor ------------------------ABE---------------------------------- PS. To provide some appreciation for how degenerate DNA is, it specifies only 20 amino acids, and one stop codon, while providing 64 different codon to specify these. PPS. Mutations that do not cause a different amino acid to be produced are called "synonymous substitutions" or silent mutations. Edited by Meldinoor, : No reason given. Edited by Meldinoor, : No reason given. Edited by Meldinoor, : No reason given.
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lyx2no Member (Idle past 4745 days) Posts: 1277 From: A vast, undifferentiated plane. Joined: |
And there is a place where Dr. Adequate's neighborhood meets evolution: the ring species. Here, the Greenish Warbler on the clockwise end of the ring is P.t. Plumbeitarsus; on the other is P.t. Obscuratus.
They so differ from each the other that they do not mate. P.t. Plumbeitarsus will, however, mate with their neighbor, P.t. Viridanus, who will mate with their neighbor, P.t. Luplowi, who will mate with their neighbor, P.t. Trochiloides, who will mate with their neighbor, the afore mentioned P.t. Obscuratus.
P.t. Barnum is even more distantly related. AbE: Meldinoor I think I read something, somewhere, sometime that synonymous substitutions produce the same protein though at a different rate altering the timing of downstream reactions. And timing is of the essence. But don't quote me. 2AbE: OK, in light of what Mr. Jack said, quote me. Edited by lyx2no, : AbE. Edited by lyx2no, : 2AbE. You are now a million miles away from where you were in space-time when you started reading this sentence.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
I don't know where you got your numbers. But humans have between 300-600 point mutations per person per generation. Add to that all the other types of mutations and you have more then ''two three novel mutations ... not present in our parents''. I'm pretty sure you're out by a factor of about 100 on these numbers.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
They all make glycine. So what is the effect of a point mutation changing GGA to GGU? The tRNAs needed to translate GGA to glycine or GGU to glycine exist in differing quantities; altering the code can alter the expression rate of proteins.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4669 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
It was by memory, it's 100-300 actually.
I remembered the 300 but didn't remember if it was the upper or lower limit, my bad.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4669 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
See what Mr. Jack said.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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Hi SHEKINAH, and welcome to the fray.
Let me add something that has not been covered in the other responses.
... If animals of a given species mate and produce an abnormal offspring (i.e. a mutant), it also is sterile. Therefore, how could the macro evolutionary process advance? ... This is not how new species are formed. This is not how macroevolution occurs. Wherever you got this information from, it is wrong, you have not been given correct information on how evolution works. I suggest that you discard all you think you know about evolution and start over, using sources from science, such as An introduction to evolution - Understanding Evolution Evolution is a process that occurs continuously in all known species of living organisms, and it is the change in proportions of the hereditary traits in breeding populations from generation to generation in response to ecological opportunities. Mutations are differences in genes produced during reproduction within breeding populations, and these can harm the new organism, have no effect on it, or improve it's ability to survive and breed. You have many mutations that your parents did not have in their original DNA used in the process of reproduction to create you. Natural selection means that those organisms that are better able to survive and breed within a breeding population pass on more hereditary traits than organisms that do not do so well at survival or breeding. Over time this will cause a shift in the proportion of hereditary traits available within the population. If a part of a species (defined as a breeding population) moves into a new habitat, leaving the remaining members of the species population in the previous habitat, then there will be different ecological opportunities due to: (1) the habitat is different in it's ability to provide nourishment,(2) the predators\prey relationships of the ecosystem will be different, (3) the mutations that occur in the breeding members of the sub-population in the new habitat will be different from the mutations that occur in the breeding members of the sub-population in the old habitat, (4) these mutations may, or may not, provide a benefit to the organisms in the habitat they inhabit, and (5) the mutations in the sub-populations may not be shared with the other sub-populations due to isolation mechanisms. If the reproductive isolation is complete enough, the different sub-populations will evolve in different ways, and can reach the point where they are not able to breed with the other sub-population. This is what has occurred with horses, donkeys and zebras -- they all are descendants of an ancestor equine population, but have evolved in slightly different ways to the point where hybrid offspring are usually sterile. This is the point at which new species are formed: when the daughter populations can no longer interbreed and produce fertile offspring. After this point has been reached, each daughter species is free to evolve in different ways and become more divergent from the other daughter species over time. This is macroevolution. Evolution plus time. Enjoy.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
Hmm... it rather depends whether you're referring to simple changes in DNA, or concentrating on protein-coding genes.
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