Summations Only

"I accept that natural selection does occur and that it can cause a population to change, but you need now to show me how the genome created those novel features because, until you do, I can say that the genome must have had them to start with."

It all comes down to imperfect copies

Jar writes:If the genome of a daughter is different than the parent, isn't that sufficient evidence?

RAZD writes:Personally I think we need to focus on the phenotype and selection forces, and that we need to look for further development that what has been discussed so far, with the dogs and with the lizards.

Jar writes:In the example of the doggies the daughter population showed a trait that had not been in the parent population, namely webbed feet.

Jar writes:If a Creationist does not want to accept the fact of Evolution, then evidence will seldom sway them.

Taq writes:If a B-cell binds to an antigen then it is told to make more of that antibody and replicate. This is not anticipation. This is reaction.

Z writes:I would say that this is only modification of existing alleles. What would you say this is?

A key problem in evolutionary biology is to connect genotype with phenotype for fitness-related traits (1, 2). Finding the genes underlying adaptation has been difficult for a number of reasons. First, it requires that we identify traits that are ecologically important and that we have some understanding of how these traits affect fitness in different environments. Second, phenotypic variation of ecological relevance has often been studied in species for which we have little genetic information, making the genetic basis of the traits difficult to analyze. For example, one of the best known cases of adaptation involves color morphs of the peppered moth, Biston betularia. Yet, after more than a half-century of study, the genes responsible for these color differences remain unknown (3). Finally, many fitness-related traits are quantitative and are unlikely to have a simple genetic basis. Because of these difficulties, the molecular basis for adaptation is known in only a handful of cases. Most involve either biochemical polymorphisms (4—6) or response to human disturbance, such as heavy metal tolerance in plants, insecticide resistance, warfarin resistance in rats, or antibiotic resistance (7), and in many cases, the specific nucleotide changes have not been identified.

Zaius writes:Your statement implies that these existing alleles just magically appeared in the first place. They are in the right place at the right time to accept moderate modifications to create novel functionality. I have seen no evidence from you or anyone else demonstrating any new novel phylogenic functions arising in the genome except by genetic recombination.

zaius writes: Or is this pushing the thread outside the limits of discussion

a convenient escape for the harder questions.

If I understand you correctly, what your are saying now is that you DO accept that changes to alleles can lead to novel features.But this isn't good enough because ......... it was a result of mixing together genes that already exist in the genome not creating an entirely new gene or set of genes.Is this correct?

Zalus writes:Creationists have always maintained the need for adaptation etc etc

zaius writes:I hope you are not expecting a yes or no about this.

I do not believe that the authors of this mouse paper correctly identified all the genes and types of mutations involved ..........

.........or even a connection between the color adaptation and a molecular mechanism for the selection pressure of coat coloration.

Wounded King writes:This is a really bad answer to an admittedly badly constructed question.

Natural selection is not a selective pressure itself, it is a term which captures the action of all the varied selective pressures acting upon a population. In the paper the authors suggest that the relevant selective pressure acting on coat colour is predation, principally by owls.

Secondly sexual reproduction is hard to class as a molecular mechanism and is also not a very tenable explanation for the origin of these mutations. Are you suggesting that the 4 separate Mc1r mutations that were identified as highly associated with the melanic phenotype were brought together to form this trait due to allelic recombination?