The Origin of Novelty

"Latent" in this context means "potential" (look it up!). The genome has the potential to adapt by mutation (in this case, duplication leading to amplification) causing a new phenotype. That is evolution.Remember, I showed you this paper along with others (like the adaptation to warmth by duplication one) to show you that duplications can be advantageous on arrival as well as neutral and detrimental. You already know that point mutations can change the protein product of coding genes in ways that are advantageous or neutral. So, you have an answer to your question, which was how can evolution increase the number of protein coding genes from 1000 to 20,000. Combine the processes. Add a gene by duplication, then, like other genes, it is subject to change by point mutations. Voil. You've got a new coding gene. Why would the advantageous potential (latent) ability of self-replicators to adapt being favoured by nature over the hypothetical lack of that ability be "funny"? Static self-replicators would perish in an ever changing environment, so the survival advantage of strains that replicate with variation would be better described as " obvious" rather than "funny". You'd have noticed that there are about thirty amplifications of the new gene in the Antarctic fish paper which is mentioned in the subtitle above if you'd read it carefully. There are variations by point mutation between these, as well. They are, from memory, 97% to 99% identical. Read the paper carefully, and you will see that they have analyzed a historical sequence of events which happened entirely by common types of mutation that can be observed in the lab. There's a duplication, which enables one copy to mutate away from the primary function and form the anti-freeze protein, then further duplications of the new gene. How can a new copy already be there? And why can't the new copy mutate to produce novelty in the phenotype just as other genes do?If you read and understand the various papers I've shown you, you should be able to see very clearly that novel protein coding genes can be produced by well established processes. Duplication, then point mutation on one or both of the copies. It's not just a question of selection. Do you not understand that experiments like the adaption to warmth one and the Lenski experiment start from one original organism. The cultures derived from this are initially clones. The original genome is known, so that the researchers can identify what has arrived by mutation. So, novel features in the genotype and phenotype can be observed to arrive in the lab. Be careful. On the basis of known adaptations, you'll find yourself having to argue that a whole variety of modern pesticides were being used in the garden of Eden, and that Adam and Eve were wearing nylon and treating themselves with a range of antibiotics while also using modern anti-malarial drugs. I think you might have a few theological problems with all that, as well as the obvious historical ones. Remember, the Lenski adaptation required enabling mutations + the creation of a new regulatory gene by a duplication as well as the amplifications. As requested. I think you'll find that the young earth Baramin view will require extremely high levels of mutation to account for the differences within elephants. Deceptively, Asian elephants and the mammoth are closer to each other than they are to African elephants. What'll happen if the genomes are fully sequenced, and you find that the quantity of difference between African and Asian elephants is far too great for them to have come from a bottleneck 4,500 years ago? It certainly will be.Based on the genomes of two mammoths and some African elephants, the current estimates of the difference between the mammoths (+ Asian elephants) and the Africans is about half that of the differences between humans and chimps. Tens of millions. Does it? Why? But forget the hyrax. What I'm saying is that you'll require lots of elephant and mammoth pairs on the Ark (plus all the food they need for a year) in order to account for their current diversity. Remember your claim that it's impossible to get 120 million differences on the genome between humans and chimps in 5 to 7 million years? Well, you certainly won't get the differences between African and Asian/mammoth elephants (~60 million) from a tiny bottleneck 4,500 years ago, will you? These are different species with generation times like ours.For example, give the elephants 100 mutations per generation going to fixation along each lineage going back 180 generations back to your 4,500 yr old Ark. The fixed difference between any two groups separated by 360 generations should be about 36,000, not 60,000,000! The two mammoth I mentioned were from different groups, and they differ from each other by millions of point mutations as well. Then, in extant elephants, there are different breeds and sub-species within Africans and Asians, with some experts arguing for more that one species in Africa.Are you beginning to understand how your young earth model is easily falsified by genetics alone, without even talking about archaeology, paleontology, geology and cosmology? How do you decide what's "too different" to be related? Surely the limit should be set by the quantity of genetic differences possible in your time scale. That's so little that you'll not only have to separate the common chimps from the bonobos and us from Neanderthal, you'll have to separate Africans from Australian aborigines and have them separately created in different Edens. Does it? How? To whom? Experts in the relevant fields? You're forgetting your original point. The claim that duplication is always disadvantageous. If a duplication of AMY 1 occurs in one of your grandchildren, how can it be anything other than neutral or advantageous (depending on the kid's future diet)? I brought up the AMY1 gene along with the lab examples in bacteria and wild examples in the malarial parasite in order to demonstrate that your claim was clearly false. Protein coding genes only comprise ~1% of the genome. So, you're out by two orders of magnitude. At your mutation rate and with your calculations, one in 70,000 of the population would mutate on a particular coding gene. Then, if you understand population genetics and assume all the mutations to be close to neutral, only a tiny minority of the modern population would have variants in point mutations from the original 4 alleles of Adam and Eve, although there would be lots of these variants (any neutral mutation that occurred would remain in one in 70,000 of the total population with average drift luck). So, we have a prediction from your model. What we should see in the present population is the overwhelming majority with the 4 original alleles. Take a random sample of 100 people from around the world, and there won't be much variation, if any at all, from the original 4.Would you like that prediction to be tested?In addition, you have another prediction about the Y chromosome of Noah, which all men should have, without having much more than 60 point mutations difference from the original, and therefore not much more than 120 differences between any two individuals (from pedigree studies of Y-chromosome mutation rates like the one I showed you).Would you like that prediction to be tested? You're welcome. And thanks for the image of the Ark with a sizeable herd of genetically variable elephants on it, a big enough job for 8 zookeepers on its own!It's actually the research papers that are challenging to your beliefs, not my posts.Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.Edited by bluegenes, : missing word

To be blunt, there is nothing that can prove a genuine transitional fossil. Its impossible to prove, because phenotypes are not always a reflection of DNA similarity. But even so, if evolution is true there should be many cases of what appears to look like transitionary fossils, to support the theory of evolution. There are not enough of these dated sequences to make a good case for evolution, as opposed to the known fact that there was huge diversity, and now there is less diversity. Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

Baloney. It is a fact that fossils have a mixture of features from two divergent taxa. Transitional fossils are a fact. Every single transitional fossil we have is consistent with evolution. That is some serious evidence in favor of evolution.

Oh really? Even today we see completely differing genotypes having near identical phenotypes. This is known in evolutionary circles as "convergent evolution". Due to DNA analysis we are sure they are from completely different nested hierarchies. Due to the fact that we do not have DNA analysis for so-called transitional fossils means we can never be sure if they are a transition or not. Even from an evolutionist's perspective, there are no two fossils that exist that we can be sure of, due to convergent evolution re-creating similar phenotypes from completely different species.Your point is baloney, transitional fossils are guess work. But even so, there are so few fossils that even look transitional so that even the guesswork lacks enough quantity to be taken seriously. i would like to see some more guessed sequences of similar looking fossil sequences so that evolution at least looks like it makes some sense.Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

Fair enough. But my main point stands, the high numbers of observed alleles are consistent with mutation rates and do not in any manner contradict a 6500 year period.

Okay, this time I looked it up. If you look at the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on Noncoding DNA you'll see that 98% of the human genome is noncoding, i.e., lies outside of genes. So when you said this in Message 748: If you redo your math but this time include the 98% noncoding figure you'll find that on average only 1 gene out of 35,000 is affected. Since the genome actually has only 21,000 genes that means that on average only one gene experiences a mutation, and in only a little over half of offspring.

This is true. Which means that a little over half the world's population has a unique gene compared to their parents. That's about 4 billion unique genes, but only about 21000 gene locations exist. Whichever way you work it out, there's millions of new alleles being created each generation due to our huge populations, and so to find a few thousand at one locus is not surprising in the least, and does not contradict the "ark" view of 8 survivors , and mutations since then.

Nice to know that you're keeping an open mind. a) That is false.b) Fossils do not contain DNA. Whatever definition we give for a transitional fossil, it has nothing to do with DNA or the lack of it. Criticising fossils for a lack of DNA is like criticising the Gospels for not having photo's of Jesus.c) Even if I were to show you two species that share DNA, would you accept this as evidence for evolution? No you would not. It is deeply dishonest of you to harp at me for a lack of DNA evidence, when you routinely dismiss the DNA evidence that does exist. Yes there should. If evolution is true, then there should be lots of them. We are agreed on that. Really? How do you know? You just said that it was completely impossible both in practise and in principle to tell whether a fossil is transitional or not. So how can you say whether there are too few? If you want to take the rather obstinate position that we cannot know any transitional fossil as what it is, then the only logical position for you to take is one of total agnosticism. Yet you say silly things like this; How do you know whether transitional fossils exist or not if it's impossible to tell a transitional fossil?How about this nonsense; Isn't it? In your latest reply you claim that it's impossible. Make your damn mind up. Huh? But you just said that it's impossible to recognise a transitional fossil, so how can you say whether there is a lack or not?Your habit of making shit up as you go along has led you into a contradiction; either there is a way to recognise transitional fossils and they turn out to be lacking or there is no way to recognise transitional fossils and you have no idea how many there are.You don't get to have it both ways, so which is it?But even after all of this, I notice that you have still not answered my question. You have told me that there is "nothing that can prove a genuine transitional fossil". Well that's not really what I'm asking for. No-one claims to be able to prove that a fossil fits into a particular transition or not; science doesn't work on "proof". I asked you what a genuine transitional fossil would look like, what characteristics it would have. You refuse to answer. A less charitable poster than I might suspect that haven't actually given the matter the slightest thought, or that you haven't got a clue what you're talking about. But I'm not mean like that, so I'll ask again; what would a genuine transitional fossil look like? What characteristics would it have to fulfil for us to begin to recognise it as transitional?Seriously mindspawn, if you are unable to answer that simple question, you have no business commenting on the subject of the fossil record. Answer the question, or stop making claims about things you can't even define.
Mutate and Survive

Yes, really. H. erectus has a mixture of features from modern humans and basal apes. The platypus has a mixture of features from reptiles and placental mammals. Archaeopteryx has a mixture of features from modern birds and non-avian dinosaurs. Tiktaalik roseae has a mixture of features between lobed finned fish and terrestrial vertebrates. Transitional fossils and species are a fact. That doesn't change the fact that they are transitional. The transitional nature of fossils is based on their morphology, not their DNA. We can determine if they are transitional by their morphology alone since that is all that is needed. Again, transitional means that the fossil has a mixture of features from two divergent taxa. THAT'S IT!!! Transitional and ancestral are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. Ignoring the evidence does not help your case.Name a single fossil that does not fit into the nested hierarchy.

Convergence times for both the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA are well beyond the 6,000 year mark. Human variation in these two parts of the genome already falsify a 6,000 year old Earth.

No we do not.Disagree? Show me an example. I gotta say, it's comments like the above that make me wonder if you truly understand what scientific evidence is and how it works, 'cause baby, that ain't it.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

Earliest bat fossil reveals transition to flight.

Isn't that the Mexican freetail bat?Digimorph - Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana (Mexican free-tailed bat)Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

There's a link right there in the message. Or just google "transitional", "bat" and "fossil" and click the first link. What? No!Did you read the article?

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The clawed bat part refers to one of the many intermediate features that make Onychonycteris the most primitive bat species ever described. In all current and prior fossil species of bats, most of the digits in the wing lack the claws typical of mammalian digits. That's not the case here: all Onychonycteris digits end in claws.

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You're not exactly giving the impression of having done extensive research here...Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

Thanks, I should have noticed that link