The Origin of Novelty

Hi HBD - just to save you any time trying to see what's wrong with your links, after BD's last message, they work fine for me. Maybe China censors them.

I am not really sure your meaning here Percy. The discussion is still fairly new and ongoing, and it continues to be a platform for your side to make the best argument they can for their belief in random mutations and natural selection as the tools for novel features. It would certainly be a powerful debate tool for them in every other evolution thread, if they could manage to come up with any that seems convincing.But I do agree with you so far, that up til now, they don't have very much to offer, and its not looking good for them. But in science, its just as important to show your weaknesses of knowledge as it is your strengths, so its at least serving that purpose. But as someone who has watched the Chinese football teams get creamed a lot in international competitions, I can certainly sympathize with your duress and understand why you just want it to end.

Maybe you don't have pdf capability? full txt versions below The Making of a Photosynthetic Animal
Sea Slug Kleptoplasty and Plastid Maintenance in a MetazoanGive those a go ... I would tend to agree that Neo-Darwinism is insufficient to provide an adequate explanation of evolutionary processes. I think the problem is that it is too simplistic (especially when defined as random mutation + natural selection). I believe the future of Evolutionary Biology must include developmental processes in the mix. Although mutation + selection is generally correct, it cannot adequately explain the process by itself. So in that sense I agree with you.Do you consider HGT to be a mutation? But if you read the paper you can see that it is not the whole story. The algae must be present in the early stage of development for the slug to grow into a mature adult. The presence of the algae affects the developmental process of the slug. However, without the HGT of critical genes, the slug would not be able to utilize the chloroplasts for extended periods of time and they would quickly degenerate when algal nuclear DNA was not present.In the OP you requested: My example should fit the bill. I have given you the benefit of the doubt that you sincerely want to have a discussion and that you would respect responses that were not "quotes from talk-origins" or the like. I put some thought into my post and provided a clear example of what you were asking for. If you have only come to throw around insults then I apologize, but I don't want to play that game.HBD

I do respect your response. I just didn't know what you meant by saying many examples of step by step processes have already been given-I think that is definitely not the case.Likewise, I hope you will respect that I never said anything about the world being 5000 years old, so I am not sure what the point of that was.But I do agree, it is becoming more and more clear that it is large scale developmental changes which are driving the evolution of animals. That certainly makes a lot more sense to describe what we have so far from the fossil record. I am not sure why knowing this, you still feel the need to accept natural selection and random mutations however.Firstly, there just isn't any good evidence for it, unless you feel that just because a bacterium changes its methods of metabolizing in a few generations to be all you need to draw much larger inferences.But secondly, if you know about epigenetic changes, causing large scale shifts in entire chains of genes, how does one then go backwards and say, yea sure, now its no longer point mutations controlling the change, but that's probably how it started out. How does an epigenetic switch which causes the entire development of a body part to be turned on or off arise from a point mutation of a single gene back in time. Is it possible at all to call an epigenetic change to be a product of random fluctuations that got selected for through natural selection? Does that not seem a desperate stretch needed just to pacify those who need to hold on tightly to a world which is merely random?Without the promise of random mutations and natural selection as the beginning of everything, isn't their world view destroyed?

I would just add this about this topic. What is being discussed is the heart of soul of what people have been clinging to in evolution for over 100 years. That this is how life must arise. Its what all of Richard Dawkin's millions of sold books is about, its what all of pop modern science talks about in biology, it is what has made Charles Darwin a household name, or more realistically what has made him a cult icon.And yet here we are, on a site which has a whole lot of people who are very fervent in their believe of this theory, and NOT A ONE SINGLE ONE of them can adequately try to describe how they think it happens. Not ONE! All they can do is point to a diagram of different kinds of eyes, and say,see, that's how its done.And not only can they not describe the process of how all of these multiple steps could come about randomly, they can't even refer you to anyone who is a professional in those field who could. Because such an explanation doesn't exist ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.So we have how many hundreds of millions of people who believe in this random mutations-natural selection business, and there isn't even on single person who can describe in any reasonable fashion how it all comes together. No experts, no one. And yet people just accept it as true anyway, as if these are just minor details to be worked out, but we still have faith.I think that is a pretty astonishing admission. How many people just assume that someone has studied this problem and got it down, because there are trained biologists who know all about this. And they are wrong.As far as I am concerned, this is all the lawyers needed to say in the Dover trial, just ask the evolution side to lay out how they think it goes down, step by step. After learning that they never could, the case would be finished.I am just amazed at how many of you treat this as just a small problem. How in the world can you call that science.

BTW, tonight is Chinese New Year here. If I can figure out how, and anyone is interested, I might try to post a small video clip of what its like watching all the fireworks going insane at the stroke of midnight. I assure you, you have never seen a war film that is as intense as what goes on in the average streets of China on the first of the new year.Remember when the US launched the nighttime attack on Iraq and it was shown on prime time television; that was nothing compared to this. Edited by Bolder-dash, : No reason given.Edited by Admin, : Remove "insan*" from Bolder-dash's censored word list.

Hi Bolder-dash,Let me be more clear. As moderator I take no sides. My sole interest is fostering constructive debate, which we accomplish here by enforcing the Forum Guidelines.So as long as constructive discussion of your topic, the origin of novelty, is ongoing this thread will remain open, but what you seem more interesting in doing is declaring how great you're doing, as you did just now in claiming you've been delivering beat-downs similar to those received by Chinese football teams.So if this thread is really as you describe, "still fairly new and ongoing," then don't you think its a bit early for these kinds of declarations? Save them for the summation, or even better, be above that.

This is asinine! There is no mechanism that exists for leprechauns even existing, let alone them being able to 'paint the sky'. It's well known that the sky's blue colour comes from diffraction of light not paint daubed on a celestial dome!On the other hand, the mechanism for mutation is well known and can be trivially demonstrated. You can perform E.Coli experiments in any school lab to demonstrate mutation fixation. Stochastic processes in chemistry means (by definition) that organic replicating processes are not perfect - which means (by definition) that replicating individuals MUST show variation within a population.I sincerely believe that the modern Hollywood incarnations of films such as Pokmon and X-Men, mean that a significant number of individuals believe that 'mutants' mean some sort of way-out massively corrupted form of an individual such as being able to 'throw fire' or attract metal.Nothing could be further from the truth. Most mutations are incredibly subtle - you have approx 100 mutations carried by neither your mother nor father - as a result of stochastic chemical activity.These subtle mutations do count though - over time and over generations. Ultimately you haven't given any mechanism for how adaption through mutation and NS can't happen. And until you do then this has to be the preferred route for adaption of life on earth - mainly because it is the ONLY mechanism that has ever been proposed that (crucially) tally's with the evidence.The really sad thing for me is that Darwin knew the truth of evolution after spending a lifetime in the field. His expertise in the natural sciences led him to know in his inner core he was right. His problem is that he didn’t know the mechanism - he didn't know about genetics and mutations. And that is sad - because while he was alive Mendel was doing work on genetics - Darwin just didn't know about it. So he had to defend his theory which he instinctively knew was correct without being able to provide the mechanism - never an easy proposition.It is safe to say that the ToE is accepted by all serious scientists in the world today. To kick against it is to be compared to a flat-Earther. There is really no debate any more - and hasn't been for the past half century.

I thought we had done a good job of describing it to you in general terms: it was just the specific examples that we couldn't comment on beyond hypotheses, because it's intellectually dishonest to make claims in the absence of evidence. I'm not sure what you expect here: by definition, there is no explanation for "how all these multiple steps came about randomly": because the word "randomly" is the explanation. But, in actuality, only part of it is random.As Drosophila explained upthread, chemistry is probabilistic: so every time a DNA molecule is replicated, there will be "errors" (or cases where the reaction doesn't produce a perfect copy). As far as we can tell, there is no real mechanistic explanation for this: chemistry is simply imperfect.In a population of replicators, you therefore get a lot of variation simply because of these random errors or mutations. And, variation in phenotype results in variation in the likelihood for success. So, success is not random. That's natural selection.So, any population will have a variety of individuals. For example, our putative slug-like mollusc with eyespots may have been a member of a population that includes some individuals with dimpled eyespots, or individuals with dimples all over their body, or individuals with eyespots that are prone to dimpling. Therefore, in this population, the relative usefulness of dimpled and non-dimpled eyespots would produce a non-random outcome from random variation.----- Epigenetics is not a useful topic here. By definition, epigenetics does not involve changes to gene sequences, so it cannot explain why animals whose phenotypic differences are due to differences in gene sequences.The whole concept of Evo-Devo (evolutionary developmental biology) is that phenotypes arise form patterns of gene expression, and not solely from the sequence of base-pairs in the protein-coding genes. But, patterns of gene expression are also controlled by genetic elements: mutations to regulator genes cause protein-coding genes to be expressed at different times.A good example of this is the gene Antennapedia. When the gene antennapedia undergoes certain types of point mutations within its regulatory region, patterns of expression are changed, and the type of appendages that are grown on a given segment of the body is also changed (e.g., the fly may grow legs where it would have grown antennae).So, arthropods have genes that control the "fate" of a given appendage. It seems pretty easy to conclude that mutations to genes like this one can explain the variation in appendage arrays among arthropod groups. For example, some arthropod clades have two pairs of antennae (e.g., crustaceans), some have only one pair (insects), and some have no antennae at all (arachnids).----- 我大概十年前当了摩門教的傳教士時候住在台灣。 105;在那里的第一次過年，什麽路上都有飛的焰火。甚 至我窗戶差一點就被焰火破碎了！（不好意思：我 981;太會簡體字）。Edited by Blue Jay, : No reason given.Edited by Blue Jay, : No reason given.

Everything is novel... at first.

You are right. I don't see that you have made this claim. Your arguments are typical YEC tactics though. If a hole can be poked into evolutionary theory, then creation becomes true by default. I do realize that there is a growing number of non-creationists that are finding fault with traditional Darwinian mechanisms. However, the difference is that those scientists are proposing alternate ideas and hypotheses not just calling those who except Darwinistic mechanism idiots. IMHO you should switch tactics a bit and propose a better explanation for the observations we have. People are going to cling to the current paradigm until a better explanation comes along. Because RM + NS are largely right, it is just too simplistic. I realized this in my Introductory Botany course when the professor asked "Why do plants produce secondary metabolites?" There is a couple basic ways to answer this. You could say "God made them that way" or you could say "Random mutations and natural selection over millions of years did it." Regardless of the correctness of either answer, I feel they both fail to truly provide an answer. There is a third, perhaps more appropriate answer, IMO. "We don't really know why." But what we can do is discover what advantage these secondary metabolites have for the plant, how they affect interactions with other organisms, and how they are produced and processed by the plant. We can also explore relationships with other plants and get a pretty good idea about how these secondary metabolites came to be.So if you're railing against the simplistic, non-answers then I am right with you. But that does not seem to be the case. You seem to simply find Neo-Darwinism implausible. Perhaps you could clarify this some. You can't possibly mean that there is no good evidence that mutations do occur or that natural selection does not differentiate between those individuals that produce more offspring and those that produce less offspring. So you must mean that there is not good evidence that RM + NS can produce the large scale changes required of evolutionary processes. What is the mechanism that can produce non-random changes? This would be a good place to provide an alternate hypothesis that could replace Darwinistic mechanisms. Are you suggesting that epigenetic changes are non-random?The problem that people have is that there is no known mechanism that can predict environmental factors and direct genetic changes to take advantage of those factors. And there is plenty of evidence that they are controlled by basic, universal principals which for all intents are random with respect to the organism's needs. A mechanism that can direct genetic changes in a non-random, beneficial way would be an incredible discovery. Think of the implications it could have on the fight against cancer or genetic diseases.One final thought here. Neo-Darwinism is kind of an obsolete term. It is still used, but the modern theory is usually referred to as the Modern Synthesis. The Modern Synthesis includes many more factors than just RM + NS.HBD

Denial of the many extensive explanations doesn't make them go away, it just shows willful ignorance and the desire to remain underinformed.Opinion doesn't change reality. In reality we see there are many different kinds of sensors for light, from patch to dimple to cup to pin-hole, etc etc etc. No, it doesn't make it easier to feel the sunlight, it makes it easier to tell the direction the sunlight is coming from. This is an improvement in the information for the organism over just telling whether or not there is sunlight. A body covered with dimples and a body with light sensitive skin patches puts the two components together, and positive selection for an improved trait increases the frequency of the light sensitive dimple in the population -- evolution occurs. If you find ignorance is funny. I find it pathetic, when learning is so much fun and so readily available. The question is which is better at telling you the direction of the sunlight. If the dimple allows you to tell the direction of the sun so you can move towards it to be in more sunlight, then you are more likely to meet up with other similar individuals doing the same thing.Positive selection then improves the trait: the dimple deepens into a cup, where the sides can be in shadow if the cup is not pointed towards the sun, this increases directional sensing. Perhaps you should start listening then, and asking questions when you don't understand, rather than going off half-cocked, and apparently reveling in ignorance.stage 1: sense presence\absence of sunlight
stage 2: sense direction of sunlight Actually it happens by selection of beneficial traits within breeding populations in response the ecological challenges and opportunities ... you know ... evolution. We've already gone from dimple to cup by this simple process.The deeper the cup gets the better it is at sensing the direction of the sunlight. You can mimic this process by holding different length tubes, each with a piece of paper over the bottom end, and see how accurately they point to the sun when the bottom lights up. Make them 1/4" deep. 1" deep and 2" deep, cut from toilet-paper rolls.Next divide the bottom into quarters and see if you can point the tube towards the sun just by noting which patches are lit and which are in shade.Increased directional sensitivity will drive selection for closing the top of the cup into smaller and smaller opening, while at the same time dividing the sensitive patch into smaller sections that cover the bottom of the cup, so the bottom spreads out under the small opening -- these small sections then act as independent on-off sensors for light direction, improving the sensitivity of the directional response.The eye develops in a watery environment, so it starts out filled with liquid, the optic nerve grows from the skin nerves as they develop from light sensitive patches into retinal cells. The brain also develops to process the information from the different sensor cells so that it knows where the brighter light is and discern grades of light and shade. This process does not involve mutations so much as refining the use already there for processing nerve signals.As this process continues an amazing thing happens: suddenly, rather than just sensing direction, an emergent property of the small opening at the top -- caused by the physics of light -- turns it from blurred light patch into an image. This is how pin-hole cameras work - it isn't a magical operation of the skin cells, but a fact of physics that makes the image form.Again you can mimic this by taking a piece of cardboard and making a set of holes from 1/4" diameter down to pin-hole size. Hold the cardboard perpendicular to sunlight and take a sheet of paper to move away from the cardboard until the images change from blurred to focused. You will note that the smaller the hole, the better the image can be made. Do it on a cloudy day and you can form images of the clouds passing in front of the sun.Eclipse Viewerstage 3: sensing imagesBy changing the distance from the pin-hole to the retinal skin patches the image can be focused for different distances, and this just requires muscles to move the focal plane relative to the pinhole.We now have an eye that can sense light, sense the direction of light, and form an image from light. For all intents and purposes this is a fully functional eye, as observed in the Nauteloids.This is not magic nor is it a fortuitous string of many mutations, rather it is selection of existing traits that improve as mutations enhance the existing system. Beginning in a water environment they start out filled with liquid. Yep, and a pretty good job too, imho. Such a rational step-by-step process, along with objective evidence of organism demonstrating the different stages (and types) of eye formation/s. Ah, hanging your rejection on the fact that very few soft tissues fossilize, plus ignorant straw man arguments, I see. Unfortunately, not only are there some fossils (nauteloids in particular), but we also have many existing organisms with these features, demonstrating that their ecological fitness is improved by the rudimentary light sensing patches and pinhole eyes.More argument from incredulity, rather than considering the rationale behind these scenarios. In your opinion. It is also a very good source for studying creationist denial and willful ignorance and the gymnastics they go through to pretend that evolution doesn't work. And yet the theory has proven accurate in explaining the diversity of life as we know it. Curiously, that is all that is asked of this theory.The funny thing about this is that not only has the eye evolved, but eyes have evolved independently many times, with different eyes evolving in different branches of hereditary descent, where we can fit organisms into nested hierarchies based on their eyes.Finally, the validity of evolution does not depend on explaining the development of the eye in minute detail, it just depends of being the best explanation for the diversity of life as we know it. Curiously, there are not even any close contenders.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clrtyEdited by RAZD, : ...

I have to be honest, and say that Bolder-dash actually has a valid point. If we posit that novel structures, like eyes, legs, antennae, wings, tentacles, etc. evolved through mutation and natural selection, and that mutation and natural selection are still happening now... then we do need an explanation for why we don't see novel structures popping up now.Of course, there are some pretty good explanations available already:

1. First of all, it's entirely possible that we do see novel structures popping up now, but perhaps we don't recognize that it's happening. This would especially be the case if the process is very subtle and gradual.
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2. Perhaps the benefits of adding novelties are smaller for modern animals than they were for ancient animals. This would make sense in some cases. For example:
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   1. An animal that already has a complex suite of organs and appendages may already "have all its bases covered," and there aren't any major roles left for a novel structure to play, so there's no motive to evolve it.
   2. Also, an animal evolving a new structure, like legs, might not be able to compete with animals that already have a comparable structure, so it fares better if it just stays in its current niche.
3. Perhaps modern animals have evolved genomic and developmental processes that are less amenable to the emergence of novel features. For example, an increasingly complex suite of regulatory genes would be like a Rube Goldberg machine: the more complex it gets, the more precise the process has to be in order to ensure it accomplishes its task. So, mutations would tend to destabilize such a process.

These seem like ideas that "should" be testable, but I can't think of practical way to actually test them with current knowledge and technology. Any ideas?Edited by Blue Jay, : No reason given.

No, he doesn't.First, what kind of "novel" features are involved?Take humans.If his definition of "novel" feature is growing a second head, or humans developing gills for under-sea survival next week then he is asking for the "hopeful monster" which doesn't happen in evolution. Such an expectation is caused by gross ignorance of what evolution is and how it works.Is a population possessing longer than the species average leg-length a "novel" feature? How about a feature that allows a human population to thrive in the rarefied air of 12,000 feet? Is this a "novel" feature?If so then these are new novel features for humans that already happened. New as in 50,000 years. Anything shorter and pebble-brain is being his usual ignorant self in his expectation. Evolution does not say that novel features appear on demand, or even in a few hundred human lifetimes, and he cannot expect that of the theory.But there are millions of species on this planet. "Novel" features could be developing every week and we might never know. And if we saw them we may not recognize them.Besides, anything we come up with for pebbles will cause an instant re-definition of "novel" to exclude it.No. He does not have a valid point. Not even close.[edit]An after-thought.Give or take an ice age or two, the environment has been exceptionally steady on this planet for the past 200,000 years. There has not been a lot of selective pressures on most populations. Populations grow into their niche and enter stasis with genetic variation building up as a population grows.But, when this happens natural selection does just the opposite of innovate. It tends to maintain the successful phenotype. Populations will tend to remain in stasis until there is a reason (increased selective pressure) to adapt. Significant new features would be few if any at all over many thousands of generations.Edited by AZPaul3, : Like I said.

I'm not sure what sort of distinction you're trying to make here.What did you want if not a description of the steps by which it occurs?