Allele Propagation Prediction

TheoMorphic writes:

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has science made any predictions/verifications as to what alleles are more likely to propagate through out a species?

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How can it?Question: Which is better to call, heads or tails?Until you know what the scenario is and the specifics of environment in which the allele exists, how can you possibly make a prediction as to its survival benefits?This is the part that many creationists have a hard time comprehending and it comes up with their continual fallacy that "most mutations are delterious." Most mutations are neutral and of those that do have a noticeable effect, we have no idea if it is beneficial or deleterious until we actually see what it does and how it behaves in the context of the rest of the environmental landscape in which it finds itself.Which is better: A short, squat body that retains body fat easily or a long, lean body that sheds body fat quickly?That really depends upon the environment in which you find yourself, now doesn't it?

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are there any prediction/verification examples, or is deciding what alleles copy themselves the most in a species and environment just ad hoc reasoning?

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Neither.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

TheoMorphic responds to me:

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Question: Which is better to call, heads or tails?

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you make it sound like it's totally luck.

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Well, in many cases it is.

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Until you know what the scenario is and the specifics of environment in which the allele exists, how can you possibly make a prediction as to its survival benefits?

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Pretend we already know what differences there are between 2 animals (preferably one small mutation). given the knowledge of what that mutation does to the organism's body, and what environment it will be set in, we should be able to predict if that organism will do better or worse than other animals with out its mutation.

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No, not really because we have no idea how that mutation will connect with the morphology already present. That is, knowing that changing X has a direct effect on Y, that doesn't tell us how it will have an indirect effect on Z. You can boost the power output of your engine, but that doesn't mean the fuselage can withstand the increased velocity that comes with it. There are also questions of scale and how it will behave within a population of organisms that have it. As an analogy, a beehive needs only one queen. A beehive that contains many queens may not function as well as those with only one so even though the individual queen is "better" because she will be more likely to have offspring and thus her genes will go on to the next generation, the whole hive as a result may suffer due to the split on resources.

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if no predictions have been made, then fitness is based on how well an allele propagates throughout a species, and the propagation is dependent on the fitness.

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And?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

TheoMorphic responds to me:

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No, not really because we have no idea how that mutation will connect with the morphology already present...

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er, well i didn't explicitly state this, but i thought i implied it. basically pretend we know everything EXCEPT how the organism will actually perform in an environment

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That's just it. We can't really know that except in the most mundane of circumstances.You may know everything about the personalities of two people, but you can't know how they're going to like each other when they meet. There are so many variables involved that you cannot control for everything.There's this thing called "emergent behaviour." It is the way in which a system reacts as a whole that cannot be predicted from the parts. The only way to find out is to actually run the system and see what happens.

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if the answer is no then we need to find some other reason as to why allele frequencies change.

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Not at all. We know why the allele frequencies change (and no, it doesn't always happen through being "fitter"...genetic drift fixates neutral mutations, for example.)Do you remember the scene from Jurassic Park where Goldblum's character puts the bead of water on Dern's hand? He asks her to predict which side of her hand it's going to roll off. The thing is, you can't. Oh, we know that the water is going to fall off given the effects of gravity and the unstable nature of the surface upon which the water sits, but we cannot predict which way it's going to go.And we don't need to. Our inability to determine which direction it is going to fall does not deter us from knowing that it is going to fall.Here, let me give an example from biology.Suppose we have a community of organisms that have a system of reproduction where there is an alpha breeder who is ostensibly the parent of all the members of the group. Suppose two new children are born. Each has a mutation that we could reasonably consider "better" than the other members of the community. Which one is going to get propagated into the rest of the community?Well, that depends...the rock slide the kills one but not the other is going to have a say in that. Even though the mutation might be considered "better," we cannot say that it is going to get passed onto the next generation because there are always things that we cannot predict about the system.Your argument essentially boils down to the claim that because we don't know everything, then we don't know anything.You're playing games, TheoMorphic. Just come right out and say it. What is your point?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!