Is there any proof of beneficial mutations?

I don't want to quote your entire post, dennis780, but if you ascribe conscious thought or even specifically directed mutation for the results you mention, then everything in your post is wrong.There are cases where environmental factors cause differences in growth and offspring traits, but that is not mutation or evolution.

if your are suggesting that "instinctive behaviour" can change genetic code deliberately to produce a specific outcome, then you are still wrong.That's not evolution, that's lamarckianism. As a theory it predates evolution by some score of years and has been proven wrong more than a hundred years ago.It recently saw some light because - and I'm sure I will be corrected here as this is off the top of my own head and I might be very wrong - there are some life-forms that can have different physical characteristics to their parents due to specific environmental factors...but that's due entirely to the "code" being in the genome already.However, it's still not design and it's still not lamarckian vindication, it's an adaptation like any other that came about through chance and mutation.Having a specific ability that impacts a limited and specific set of specific characteristics in the (unborn) offspring of a specific creature is not the same as having the ability to manipulate the genetic code deliberately to produce a certain outcome.

they "respond" by random mutation, death of less-fit and continued life of more-fit. This is in no way the same thing as saying that bacteria (for example) can deliberately modify the genetic code of their offspring to deal with a specific issue.In the nylon-eating example, it didn't go that generation one said "oh noes! nylon! quick! to the genetics lab!" and out popped generation two, willing and able to eat nylon. It was a series of steps wherein the surviving bacteria were, thanks to random mutation, slightly better and slightly better and slightly better than each preceeding generation until they were so much slightly better that they were good at it.the ones that didnt have such a good mutation either died, or did not flourish quite so well.Take the human race and aids - europeans suffered through "the plague" and it killed millions. Those that survived, in general, had a mutation which meant that they were already immune to the black death. Since this subset survived and flourished, in general, many more europeans have this mutation than would otherwise be.Fast-forward to now, and it turns out that this mutation - which was beneficial during the black death era and meant that those with it survived and those that didnt died in far greater numbers - also confers immunity to aids. Africa, on the other hand, did not suffer the black death, nor anything like it, and the mutation (which does exist) is not so common. As a whole, then, Africans are far more likely to die of aids than europeans (it's something like 15% in europe versus less than 2% in Africa).If we didn't have anti-retrovirals or barrier methods, then eventually aids would propagate into the general population at large.This would mean people immune would, in general, stand a far better chance of surviving to adulthood to bear children, who would in turn have the mutation.Pretty soon, aids would be history - it would still be prevalent because it's a virus, but it would no longer kill.Bacteria do the same thing, they just evolve quicker because their generation time is so much shorter.Want to know where aids comes from? Well, it's prevalent in monkeys and apes, in several different strains. How come they don't die of it? it's because what I just described has already happened for them. They are immune.The ability to eat nylon or live in stranger conditions is based in the same mechanisms. Given enough of a chance, or a lucky break, life will come up with a way.When it doesn't...well, extinction. Most forms of life which have ever been on this planet are extinct.Edited by greyseal, : No reason given.

Speaking of which, the first five minutes of the futurama episode a few weeks back speaks volumes. The monkey proclaims there is no link between modern man and ancient apes, which Farnsworth points out is wrong, and so the monkey said "ahha! but now you are missing a link between these two!", so the professor brings out another hominid which is the link, and the monkey goes "ahha! but now you are missing a link between these two, and the professor brings out another hoiminid...goto 10, repeat for every hominid down the line until the link between ancient apes and darwinius massili sadly, this is entirely accurate, as dennis is proving.

A quick check on google tells me that the mutation in humans actually blocks a crucial pathway for all current AIDS strains - regardless of variant.Until or unless the AIDS virus mutates itself away from needing these blocked pathways, those who are immune will continue to be immune.Apparently, the partner of one of the first people to ever knowingly die of aids didn't catch it himself purely because he was lucky enough to have this mutation.If you were talking about the prevalence of the mutation in human populations (and not talking about mutated strains of aids) then yes, those numbers (admittedly pulled out of my foggy memory, so they may be incorrect) are of the numbers of the population with that mutation.Edited by greyseal, : No reason given.

Dogmafood, if you want to start talking about "adverse mutations" then I think you'll need a different thread. In short, mutations are mutations. Some are slightly good, some are slightly bad. Some are drastically bad, some very, very good. In general, a really bad mutation will result in death for either the organism or it's offspring. slightly negative won't affect things much, neither will slightly positive.The aids-resistant mutation, for example, does very little good most of the time...but it does very little bad either. On it's own, it tends to randomly re-occur relatively often and has been found in historical remains going back 4000-5000 years at least.The key becomes when that mutation does something useful - then those with it are at an immediate advantage. It wasn't put there on purpose, it didn't happen for a reason (other than blind chance and probability) but because it DID do something good under certain conditions (yes, it took a change to find that good result) then it becomes advantageous.Now, that mutation can mutate back in any subsequent generation, or change again into something else, or get altered by some other genetic mutation - it's really very, very far from simple - and there may come a day when something else will occur and that mutation will be bad for you...survival of the fittest is survival of populations, not so much individuals. Sometimes it comes down to individuals, but there's a very fuzzy-wuzzy line that a single post to a message board like this can't very well deal with, especially when I am just a layman.

Hi bolder-dash I can only repeat what I have read online, better educated people than I can tell you far more, but with the mutation (probably one of many, but the best known is indeed the one that Wounded king Message 110 and Mr Jack Message 112 are talking about.Their explanations are far better than I could do. your understanding is wrong. That's the kindest thing I can say about it....and oh dear, I see you've abandoned all reason and started the incoherent gish galloping. Look, AIDS denialism is about as useful and correct as "climate skepticism", otherwise known as "climate change denialism". It is generally a mass of quote mines and ignorance by people who don't know what they're talking about and really should know better.If you're trying to keep some idiotic score with a gish galloping quote mined denialist copy-pasta then you have already lost.Edited by greyseal, : fixed msg to mid.

Hi Omnivorous, Yeah, I had to google it as well - I remembered it but did not know the facts. It's ok, I wasn't quite sure what you meant - whether you were wondering if the known mutation confers immunity to multiple strains of AIDS or whether the numbers I quoted were correct (which were off the top of my head, I think I got them about right, though it could be the African numbers are an order of magnitude lower). I blame it on the cold I currently have Indeed, that's exactly what the information present appears to display - Africa is beyond the worst-case scenario because of the lack of immunity in the general population, compounded by ignorance and fear, superstition and quite frankly the meddling of the catholic church and islamic "scholars" who say that using a condom is "bad".

beneficial mutation number 1: in this thread, I and others have discussed the mutation which confers partial (with one copy) and total (with two copies) immunity to aids (and the black death, and several other diseases, it seems)beneficial mutation number 2: in this thread, others have discussed the bacteria which mutated into a strain which could survive on a new substrate, an entirely new development, in the lab under strict conditionsbeneficial mutation number 3: as has been mentioned many times, the peppered moth. There is a mutation which turns the normally light moths dark. Normally this is bad, but with darker surroundings due to pollution, suddenly this mutation is useful.beneficial mutation number 4: I don't know if you've heard about it, but there is a mutation similar to another blood disease (it looks a little bit like sickle-cell) but in actual fact with those people who have it, their blood cells are smaller than usual - with the result that they can hold more blood cells in their blood stream and hold more oxygen in their body. I forget the name of the skier who has it, but, iirc, they checked him for doping and found this weird blood situation.true story, bro.there are, of course, many others and I could spend hours and hours researching them, but I'm not convinced it would be worthwhile.In each and every case, the mutations were naturally occuring and beneficial in some form.

I think you'll find that many of your ilk do. They come up with baloney like "the information was already in the genome" in some sort of attempt to say that god gave the creatures these abilities at the beginning, somehow hidden into their genetic code. What gross exaggeration? every single organism that has ever lived is the proof of evolution by natural selection, by beneficial mutations.If you accept that "microevolution" occurs (a neat word made up by those intending to discredit evolution by obfuscation) then you accept "macroevolution" because the latter is just many occurences of the former. As has been put so many times before - the difference is like saying because you can't walk across the USA in one night on foot it can't be done, yet given enough steps it can and has.And to put this all back on topic, I don't believe that moving the goalposts to demanding a "beneficial macroevolutionary occurence" (which will generally not happen, I don't think one ever has) is fair.You asked for examples of beneficial mutations. I gave you four. Sorry, that's game over for you.

I'm not sure - but yes, the mutation he has is the one I was talking about. From the wikipedia page, it says he tested positive for amphetamines, but it was "hushed up" - I think the wiki page is wrong (as usual). He apparently tested positive, but he denied it and (at the time at least) couldn't prove it, and he was given a warning. It doesn't sound like a hush-up.That aside, he has/had polycythemia vera.

Hi Bluejay, I didn't go exhaustively and fetch reams of information about the mutations, but I'm quite sure I can back them up as being (relatively recent) mutations which are also beneficial (at least some of the time!), but you're probably right. They didn't happen in the lab - most mutations don't. It won't stop the IDiots from claiming something like "it's microevolution" or "the capability was there already" in either case though... It'll be tough whether it happens in the lab or not. Two clear occurences in the lab are a real big plus though. well yes - the first two happened in the lab, the second two aren't present in the entirety of the population and are a minority, ergo unless godidit they are relatively recent mutations which can be backtracked by some sleuthing to find out when and where they came from... well, unless you have a better way for it to have arisen, it must be because of mutation, no? On the other hand, I just know that there are those who will take one look at the mutations that arose in the lab and say those don't count either because godidit *shrug*. I only mentioned them because IC wanted examples of mutations, these fit the bill.