Iconic Peppered Moth - gene mutation found

After 15 years of analysis and experimentation the gene mutation that was responsible for the change in colour of the peppered moth from white to black has been found.This is a really important conformation of the theory of evolution - it demonstrates not only the process of natural selection but also the role of beneficial, random, genetic mutation.The colour change wasn't simply the result of gene plasticity, the actual mutation that occurred in an individual has been located and dated (1819 +/- 10). The date puts it exactly where you would expect it - the height of the industrial revolution when everything was soot stained and black.Famous peppered moth's dark secret revealed - BBC NewsIt's a slam dunk finding, but sadly the moth is still a moth.

There was never any more than ordinary microevolution brought about by natural selection to the peppered moths, and making the change the result of a mutation instead of ordinary microevolution raises the question: how is it that a mutation so suited to the needs of the creature just happened to come along at the right time? Aren't mutations random accidents in DNA replication, and very rare and so on? Or is the ToE now reverting to Lamarckianism?

What the hell is "ordinary microevolution"? The work demonstrates two major components of evolution directly1. an organism adapting to a new environment by natural selection (which was already accepted as fact even by you I hope) and2. proof that the mechanism of change was a genetic mutation. Something you refuse to believe. Well there it is.You have been repeatedly told that mutations are normal and not at all rare. Given the quantity of moths and the number of mutations occurring naturally, it's not at all surprising that from time-to-time a mutation will occur that is beneficial and helps an organism to adapt to a new environment.Now that you have the proof you needed, you will of course change your mind. No

It does raise the question, yes. But the problem for you is that the genetic mutation responsible has been identified and it is known why the moths are different. In short, the idea that mutations are responsible is supported by the evidence, and the idea that new combinations are responsible is not supported by any evidence. The observations do not support both theories equally well.

There are alleles for brown eyes and blue eyes, no difficulty having alleles for black moths and white moths. It's just weird that a very particular accident in replication came along at JUST the right time...

First off, it's not weird it's what happened. Someone wins the lottery every week, it's only seems weird if it's your neighbour.Second, that mutation may happen all the time - we don't know. It may have happened millions of times we don't know. If it had happened before the trees were black, the creatures wouldn't have survived. It was the co-incidence of black trees and a black moth that allowed survival. That's the first mechanism - natural selection at work.The point you need to take away is that the mutation is direct and substantial evidence for the mechanism underlying the ToE.The thing you say can't happen has been shown to happen.

It's not weird at all. You simply are mistaking reality as usual. What happened is that the industrial revolution just happened to come along at exactly the right time to select for that trait.The mutation happened when it happened but it was the Industrial Revolution that selected for that mutation.It is a full system Faith and you need to consider both sides since both sides change. Similar mutations may well have been happening long before and mutations continue to happen all the time.Stop and think Faith.Your DNA can be identified as uniquely YOU. Why is that?Why is YOUR DNA different enough from MY DNA to be uniquely identified?Why is a parents DNA different from their child's DNA?Why is the DNA of siblings born from the same pair of parents different and unique to that child?It is the mutations.But it is Natural Selection that decides which of the constant mutations will get fixed in the population and it is sex that determines which will dominate.Mutations stay in the gene pool as long as the individual lives long enough to breed. If the individual does live long enough to breed then those genes including those mutations get passed on to the next generation.The Industrial Revolution covered everything in soot. Hungry birds ate all the light colored moths that now stood out against the soot. Those moths that did not stand out lived long enough to breed before getting eaten. Soon it was the darker moths that made up the population.Change leaves evidence.Edited by jar, : appalin spallinEdited by jar, : That ---> then.

You cannot talk to or pet a moth and therefore you might just as well be talking about an icky bacteria or some kind of cattle, or a curly eared cat. This example does not count.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Faith writes:

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There was never any more than ordinary microevolution

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If 1 + 1 = 2, why can't 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 10?

We can also add that the dark species was unknown prior to 1811, and that the gene for black moths is dominant. This is a new allele, and clearly a mutation.

Even a dominant can more or less disappear in a large population where the recessive is strongly selected. That's how you can get a predominantly blue-eyed population. The dominant could eventually die out or it could remain here and there in the population in the heterozygous form, the recessives always being so much more numerous they are an extreme rarity.Similarly the very rare heterozygous black moths would not survive long, but probably not completely die out, and then would be selected against the sooty background of the Industrial Revolution, begin pairing up and proliferate as the whites were picked off by predators. Then the recessive whites would become rare, but still occasionally pair up to be selected when things got cleaned up.

Except that the selection pressure that actually exists has been characterized in experiments and does not support your hypothesis. Except that more or less disappear does not correspond to the actual non-observance that is actually what is documented. Except that now we have evidence indicating when the gene appeared, Faith.There is no place on earth where anyone would have a major difficulty finding someone brown eyes, such that we would conclude that they are new.So, no, your hypothesis does not fit the evidence. But thanks for acknowledging some other effect other than isolation for changing the prevalence of phenotypes and genotypes.

This appearance of the black moth had nothing to do with dominance or recessiveness, it was caused by a mutation.

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After a long time we eventually managed to get down to a single one [DNA differences between black and white moths] which then had to be the causal mutation. To our surprise, it also turned out to be a rather unusual type of mutation."
The carbonaria mutation was in fact a "jumping" piece of DNA, called a transposon, which had inserted itself into a gene called cortex.
These odd sequences more often have a damaging effect when they disrupt an existing gene. But for one embryonic moth in the early 19th Century, when these extra 9,000 bases landed in its cortex gene, they were in fact the secret to success.

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And the mutation occurred recently and at the correct time

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"You can take a sample of chromosomes in the present population, identify all the sequence variance around the mutation, and infer the number of generations that it would take for that amount of scrambling to occur in the flanking sequence," explained Dr Sacchieri.
Specifically, they estimate the DNA jump happened in a 10-year window centred on 1819 - a date that fits perfectly with a gradual spread of the mutation through the population, until black moths were first spotted in 1848.

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You now have the direct evidence that you said you needed to show that beneficial mutations occur that can change a phenotype and bring selective advantage. You are now an 'evolutionist' welcome.

You mean new gene frequencies brought about by selection? But that's all the same thing I've been talking about. In this case the selected black moth has the higher gene frequency and will proliferate, bringing about the new population. Same process exactly, while losing the allele for the white moths.

No, what you and I propose is certainly is not the same thing. Your claim is that the change in frequencies due to iolatation causes new characteristics to emerge through some kind of funky recombination thingy.My claim is almost the exact opposite. Namely that the gene frequencies are a statistic that reflects survival. It is not that the phenotypes of moths born to white moths are changed because of new combinations producing a new phenotype. It is instead that the white moths all got eaten leaving a phenotype that already existed, namely the black moths, to dominate the population. The black moths then do what black moths do, namely have black offspring. Isolation is not required, and of course isolation did not happen in this instance.In this case, we have an identified mutation, that is the source of the new phentotype and also a relatively new genotype. Did you in this very thread repeat your idea that mutations could not be involved in the process? Accordingly, we are absolutely not talking about the same thing. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.