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Author Topic:   Increases in Genetic Information
Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 166 of 193 (698372)
05-06-2013 9:45 AM
Reply to: Message 157 by jbozz21
05-04-2013 4:15 PM


In this case the mutation destroyed the genes ability to turn off the lactase producing gene. That is all that mutations do, is they destroy.
So those tens of millions of mutations that separate humans and chimps are examples of where one or the other genome has been destroyed?
Don't think that I am saying that mutations are not ever beneficial, under certain extenuating circumstances they can benefit an organism but it does not make the organism more fit.
So you are saying that none of the places where humans and chimps differ in their genome is beneficial to either species? You really need to explain this.
Do you agree or disagree that the physical differences between humans and chimps is due to the differences in their genome?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 157 by jbozz21, posted 05-04-2013 4:15 PM jbozz21 has replied

Replies to this message:
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jbozz21
Member (Idle past 3979 days)
Posts: 46
From: Provo, UT
Joined: 04-19-2013


Message 167 of 193 (698435)
05-06-2013 11:42 PM
Reply to: Message 166 by Taq
05-06-2013 9:45 AM


Do you agree or disagree that the physical differences between humans and chimps is due to the differences in their genome?
These tens of millions of differences in human/chimp genomes is not due to mutation but to design.

"all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." -Alma 30:44
"And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me." Moses 6: 63

This message is a reply to:
 Message 166 by Taq, posted 05-06-2013 9:45 AM Taq has replied

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jbozz21
Member (Idle past 3979 days)
Posts: 46
From: Provo, UT
Joined: 04-19-2013


Message 168 of 193 (698436)
05-06-2013 11:50 PM
Reply to: Message 165 by Coragyps
05-05-2013 11:32 AM


I think you are conflating sickle-cell anemia - Hemoglobin S - with Hemoglobin C. If you'll reread my post, you'll find "Most people with hemoglobin C never know it - some have mild anemia, gallstones, or spleen problems." The NIH does not regard it as a major problem here in the malaria-free USA:
mild anemia is still anemia.
Your source for this assertion? One lone peer-reviewed paper that shows HbC folks to have "slower brains?"
You are Making Shit Up, jbozz.
Why don't you look up the symptoms of anemia so as not to make yourself look stupid.
Difficulty Concentrating
Anemia Symptoms: Signs of A Low Red Blood Cell Count
The brain is reliant on oxygen to think. If you have less oxygen in the blood. The brain does not work as well.

"all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." -Alma 30:44
"And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me." Moses 6: 63

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jbozz21
Member (Idle past 3979 days)
Posts: 46
From: Provo, UT
Joined: 04-19-2013


Message 169 of 193 (698439)
05-07-2013 12:08 AM
Reply to: Message 164 by Coragyps
05-05-2013 11:20 AM


That is how variation + natural selection works, jbozz. Charles Darwin figured this concept out about 1.5 centuries ago.
This is not helping your assertion that man evolved from a lesser species. That is not an improvement.
Plus a vitamin C producing gene DESTROYING mutation is not beneficial mutation that is selected for against those that don't have the mutation. If anything those without the vitamin c mutation are more fit than those without it. For many people you cannot get too much vitamin c and if you do you just pee it out. But in times of famine or plague high amounts of vitamin c would boost your immune system and make you more fit to overcome the infection.
If anything this only helps the idea that man was created and not evolved, because any organism not being able to produce vitamin c we would either be selected out or randomly mixed with others that can produce vitamin c. Those that can produce vitamin c would not be selected out of the population because they are not less fit. That goes against the theory of evolution.

"all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." -Alma 30:44
"And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me." Moses 6: 63

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 170 of 193 (698444)
05-07-2013 2:57 AM
Reply to: Message 169 by jbozz21
05-07-2013 12:08 AM


This is not helping your assertion that man evolved from a lesser species. That is not an improvement.
Plus a vitamin C producing gene DESTROYING mutation is not beneficial mutation that is selected for against those that don't have the mutation. If anything those without the vitamin c mutation are more fit than those without it. For many people you cannot get too much vitamin c and if you do you just pee it out. But in times of famine or plague high amounts of vitamin c would boost your immune system and make you more fit to overcome the infection.
If anything this only helps the idea that man was created and not evolved, because any organism not being able to produce vitamin c we would either be selected out or randomly mixed with others that can produce vitamin c. Those that can produce vitamin c would not be selected out of the population because they are not less fit. That goes against the theory of evolution.
You should wait until you know what the theory of evolution is before you start lecturing people on it.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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sfs
Member (Idle past 2534 days)
Posts: 464
From: Cambridge, MA USA
Joined: 08-27-2003


Message 171 of 193 (698450)
05-07-2013 7:24 AM
Reply to: Message 167 by jbozz21
05-06-2013 11:42 PM


quote:
These tens of millions of differences in human/chimp genomes is not due to mutation but to design.
Then why do the tens of millions of differences look exactly like a bunch of mutations? What kind of design process would accomplish that? For example, why do the two genomes differ much more often at spots in the genome that have a cytosine base followed by a guanine base than at other spots? Evolutionary biology says this is because the mutation rate is much higher at those spots (as indeed it is); what's your explanation?

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(3)
Message 172 of 193 (698452)
05-07-2013 7:45 AM
Reply to: Message 157 by jbozz21
05-04-2013 4:15 PM


jbozz21 writes:
Mutations do not create anything.
Especially considering certain experiments involving bacteria and fruit flies that showed no evidence of mutations that proceeded to evolve the organism.
No Fruit Fly Evolution Even after 600 Generations | The Institute for Creation Research
http://creation.com/...e-lab-lenski-citrate-digesting-e-coli
Your links contain mistakes and completely unsupported claims. On another thread, you ask how you can trust the information in peer reviewed papers, but you seem to have no problems accepting the validity of those two articles.
Let's take the first one. Brian Thomas on fruit flies.
quote:
If evolutionary biologists could document such evolution in action, they could vindicate their worldview and cite real research to support their surreal claims. In 1980, this search for proof led researchers to painstakingly and purposefully mutate each core gene involved in fruit fly development. The now classic work, for which the authors won the Nobel Prize in 1995, was published in Nature. The experiments proved that the mutation of any of these core developmental genes. Mutations that would be essential for the fruit fly to evolve into any other creature merely resulted in dead or deformed fruit flies. This therefore showed that fruit flies could not evolve.
Here's the paper he's referring to:
Nusslein-Volhard, C. and E. Wieschaus. 1980
Immediately, you can see from the authors' description of what they are doing that it is not what your article claims at all.
From the paper:
quote:
In systematic searches for embryonic lethal mutants of Drosophila melanogaster we have identified 15 loci which when mutated alter the segmental pattern of the larva. These loci probably represent the majority of such genes in Drosophila. The phenotypes of the mutant embryos indicate that the process of segmentation involves at least three levels of spatial organization: the entire egg as developmental unit, a repeat unit with the length of two segments, and the individual segment.
What they are doing is trying to find the genes that are involved in the development of the segmental pattern of the flies, and also at what stage of the development particular genes are involved. The easiest way to do this is to damage genes or knock them out completely and see which ones effect the segmental pattern and at what stage of development is altered. It's common sense. What they do not do is try out all the possible mutations that could happen on the fifteen genes that they identify (or any other genes) to see if any are neutral or could be advantageous in certain circumstances. That's impossible to do because there are so many different ways in which the genes can mutate. So, there's nothing at all in that paper that shows that those fifteen genes or any other fruit fly genes can't change over time.
Then your author goes on to make more mistakes about another paper. My comments in yellow.
quote:
In a recent study, also published in Nature, University of California Irvine researcher Molly Burke led research into the genetic changes that occurred over the course of 600 fruit fly generations. The UCI lab had been breeding fruit flies since 1991, separating fast growers with short life spans from slow growers with longer life spans.5
The UCI scientists compared the DNA sequences affecting fruit fly growth and longevity between the two groups. After the equivalent of 12,000 years of human evolution, the fruit flies showed surprisingly few differences.
The group facing selection for rapid development went from egg to adult ~20% faster than their ancestors and the control group. In terms of any possible new mutations occuring and contributing to this, it would only be the equivalent of 12,000 years of human evolution if the population sizes were the same. About 10,000 fruit flies were involved in the experiment. If mutation rates are about the same, an effective human population size of 100,000 would mean 1,200 years. No one would expect much to happen in a population of 10,000 sexually reproducing eukaryotes in 600 generations excepting, ironically, those young earth creationists who argue for lots of rapid diversification since the Ark bottleneck!
One requirement for Darwin's theory is that the mutational changes that supposedly fuel evolution somehow have to be "fixed" into the population. Otherwise, the DNA changes quickly drift right back out of the population. No, they don't.
The researchers found no evidence that mutational changes relevant to longevity had been fixed into the fruit fly populations.
The study's authors wrote, "In our sexual populations, adaptation is not associated with 'classic' sweeps whereby newly arising, unconditionally advantageous mutations become fixed."
They suggested that perhaps there has not been enough time for the relevant mutations to have become fixed. They also suggested an alternativethat natural selection could be acting on already existing variations. But this is not evolution, and it is actually what creation studies have been demonstrating for many years.
Evolution was not observed in fruit fly genetic manipulations in 1980, nor has it been observed in decades-long multigenerational studies of bacteria and fruit flies. The experiments only showed that these creatures have practical limits to the amount of genetic change they can tolerate. When those limits are breached, the creatures don't evolvethey just die.
Although the experimental results from these studies were given titles with an evolutionary "spin," the actual experiments demonstrate undoubtedly that bacteria and fruit flies were created, not evolved.
In the experiment, no actual new mutations that contributed to the specific characteristic being selected for were identified, although there could have been some. There could also have been mutations that were beneficial in other areas. However, that's not the important point. The selection that they observed in the lab could certainly have been on already existing variations.
The wild population of any species of fruit fly will have far more than 600 times the number of individuals than there were in the experiment. In one generation (two weeks) more mutations will occur in that wild population than could occur in 600 generations in the lab. For that rather obvious reason, it's impossible for such experiments to demonstrate what cannot happen in the wild in terms of potentially advantageous mutations of any kind involving any characteristic.
Why couldn't the author figure that out?
I'll explain what's wrong with the other article on the Lenski experiment in my next post.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 173 of 193 (698462)
05-07-2013 10:55 AM
Reply to: Message 167 by jbozz21
05-06-2013 11:42 PM


These tens of millions of differences in human/chimp genomes is not due to mutation but to design.
Then please point to a difference that could not be produced by the known mechanisms of mutation. Even more, please evidence this design mechanism and cite examples of it in action. Please explain why this design process would produce a nested hierarchy, and why there are differences between genes that do not affect the amino acid sequence (i.e. synonymous mutations). sfs also makes a very good point related to the bias for CpG mutations which matches what we observe for real mutational processes.
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 174 of 193 (698467)
05-07-2013 11:05 AM
Reply to: Message 169 by jbozz21
05-07-2013 12:08 AM


Plus a vitamin C producing gene DESTROYING mutation is not beneficial mutation that is selected for against those that don't have the mutation. If anything those without the vitamin c mutation are more fit than those without it.
I would really like to see those studies as they applied to the common ancestor where this mutation occurred. Or are you just making this up?
What you need to explain is why all apes, including humans, have the SAME mutation that knocked out the vitamin c synthase pathway.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 175 of 193 (698468)
05-07-2013 11:07 AM
Reply to: Message 168 by jbozz21
05-06-2013 11:50 PM


mild anemia is still anemia.
Deadly malaria is still deadly malaria.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 176 of 193 (698475)
05-07-2013 11:28 AM
Reply to: Message 162 by jbozz21
05-05-2013 4:01 AM


I can agree that under these circumstances when infected with malaria yes, the people can live longer and therefore are more fit but at the same time when they are not infected they are less fit.
Completely wrong. You are equivocating on the term fitness.
Fitness, in the sense relevant to evolution means the ability to survive to sire/bear offspring that also survive to reproduce. Living past 50 or so contributes a relatively small amount to any of that. Accordingly natural selection has a lesser impact on things that don't affect longevity during child bearing and child rearing. How could it be otherwise? Also note that treatment allows those with sickle cell to survive past 80. See
Sickle cell disease - Wikipedia
quote:
Life expectancy is shortened. In 1994, in the US, the average life expectancy of persons with this condition was estimated to be 42 years in males and 48 years in females,[1] but today, thanks to better management of the disease, patients can live into their 80s or beyond
On the other hand malaria kills young folks. 85% of the malaria deaths today are of children under five. See
http://www.afro.who.int/...0-facts-on-malaria-in-africa.html.
Given those facts, we don't expect sickle cell anemia to be eliminated by selection in a short period of time even in malaria free countries.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 177 of 193 (698686)
05-08-2013 8:29 PM
Reply to: Message 169 by jbozz21
05-07-2013 12:08 AM


But in times of famine or plague high amounts of vitamin c would boost your immune system and make you more fit to overcome the infection.
You mean times of famine AND plague right? Vitamin C doesn't fight hunger. But in times of famine aren't there more immediate concerns than Vitamin C deficiency?

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
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Just being real
Member (Idle past 3936 days)
Posts: 369
Joined: 08-26-2010


Message 178 of 193 (698712)
05-09-2013 2:20 AM
Reply to: Message 142 by Tangle
05-03-2013 9:15 AM


How bed bugs have developed immunity to insectacides.
First I want to draw your attention to the fact that this is not a case of observed added new information that never existed before. As I suspected prior to reading the paper, this is a case of observed pre-existing information being selected to become dominant in a group or population. The protein that makes the bedbugs immune to insecticides already existed in a small minority of bedbugs and researchers merely injected that protein into a control group and then observed it become the dominant trait in that group. Scientists have known that mutations can make insects immune to the effects of insecticides for a long time. However, these are not as a result of a mutation which added new (never before existed) information.
For example a molecule of DDT acts by binding itself to a specific matching site on an insect’s nerve cell membrane, where it prevents the nerve from functioning properly. After enough DDT molecules are bound to the nerve cells, the nervous system breaks down and the insect dies. A mutation can occur in the insect’s DNA which makes the site that DDT attaches to, less specific (loss of information), preventing the DDT from binding to its intended site and rendering the insect immune to DDT. Of course changes in insect’s protein often render the insect less fit for its environment in some other way. After the insecticide threat is removed, the insect populations will usually switch right back to their original gene configuration. This is further evidence that this is not the kind of change that explains macro evolution.

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Just being real
Member (Idle past 3936 days)
Posts: 369
Joined: 08-26-2010


Message 179 of 193 (698713)
05-09-2013 2:20 AM
Reply to: Message 143 by Taq
05-03-2013 11:05 AM


JBR: I’ve been asking for an example of observed mutation that added new never before existed information to the chromosomal DNA of any multi-celled organism that gave it a selective advantage over its relatives.
Taq: Find the differences between the humans and chimp genomes. Those are the mutations you are looking for.
How does this difference demonstrate the "observation" I am talking about Taq? You are using circular reasoning here. You are saying in effect that chimps are related to humans via evolution. And that we know evolution is true via differences between chimp and human genomes. But I'm saying that I want off this crazy ride. I want an example in which some organism was "observed" in the process of gaining new information. This is what it would take to swing the scales from intelligent design, back over in favor of evolution.
Taq: You compare them to a third species. If two of the species share the same base at a given position then that gives you information on the ancestral sequence.
How do you "know" that is what that means Taq? No one observed which specie is the oldest and therefore it is merely an assumption.
Taq: In fact, we don't even need to know what function an endogenous retrovirus may have in each genome in order to test whether or not humans and other ape species share a common ancestor.
What I am saying is that unless you have observation of something occurring to connect those dots, it is merely an argument based on similarity which is completely open to any interpretation.
Taq: The logical reason is the mountains of evidence supporting universal common ancestry such as the ever present nested hierarchy.
A conclusion drawn completely on similarity arguments which do not aid in the debate between intelligent design or evolution.
Taq: This is the very pattern of shared and derived features that we would expect evolution to produce. You are essentially saying that a designer would make it look like evolution happened, even if it didn't.
No this is what one would expect if a highly intelligent designer were responsible for creating all forms of life to all exist and function within the same biosphere. The auto manufacturer known as Saab also once created aircraft.. Just because there are some similarity between the two forms of transportation does not imply that Saab intentionally meant to deceive us into thinking evolution had occurred.
Taq: By mutations we mean changes in the DNA sequence of your genome as compared to that of your parents. Mutations are random with respect to fitness, so they can be beneficial, neutral, or detrimental.
Look Taq, I don't care how many ways you randomly change the "Roses are red violets are blue" poem, It will never become the classic novel "Wuthering Heights," unless a good deal of new information is added along with the changes. Likewise you can't get from bacteria to humans just by changing DNA sequences. You have to add a good deal of new information over time. I am saying that this process has never been observed that I know of. Just because my genome is a change compared to my parents, it still is only a manipulation of alleles that already exist within the human gene pool.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 143 by Taq, posted 05-03-2013 11:05 AM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
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Just being real
Member (Idle past 3936 days)
Posts: 369
Joined: 08-26-2010


Message 180 of 193 (698714)
05-09-2013 2:21 AM
Reply to: Message 151 by NoNukes
05-03-2013 12:17 PM


Re: Nuclear contamination?
NoNukes: A mutation is simply an inheritable change in a genome of an organism. In multi-celled animals the change has to be a part of the reproductive cells to be inheritable, but it is certainly appropriate to call such a change in a lung cell a mutation if it affects new lung cells.
Yes if it can be shown that such a mutation actually added new information to the genome which gave the organism a selective advantage over its relatives, then I would agree. But what I was describing was not anything like that.
NoNukes: This 'never known before now' stuff is complete nonsense. As long as the change was not a part of any of the ancestors of say a raven, why would it be important that the genetic sequence was known before in some other, non ancestural animal, such as a penguin.
Obviously I was referring to the organism-population in question and not just any organism. I find it odd that you would insinuate otherwise. Are you really interested in discussing the issues or just trying to find a flaw in, and picking apart my wording? If mice were observed developing gills (for example) and could breath under water that would most definitely count, even though the genes for creating gills have existed in fish for thousands of years. It has never been observed existing in mice and would therefore be new never before existed information.
NoNukes: You seem to want mutant to mean the cartoon version of mutant as applied to the X-men.
No, I just want an observed addition of new information to the chromosomal DNA of any multi-celled organism that demonstrates macro evolution is at least feasibly possible. This seems like a reasonable request since there are an estimated 8.7 million species today that are said to have all evolved from an original single common ancestor.

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