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Author Topic:   How do you define the word Evolution?
CRR
Member (Idle past 2242 days)
Posts: 579
From: Australia
Joined: 10-19-2016


Message 256 of 936 (805216)
04-16-2017 9:15 PM
Reply to: Message 250 by Dredge
04-16-2017 8:43 PM


Creationist Evolution?
Perhaps for clarity we should call the Doc's definition Creationist Evolution to distinguish it from other definitions.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 257 of 936 (805218)
04-16-2017 9:20 PM
Reply to: Message 256 by CRR
04-16-2017 9:15 PM


Re: Creationist Evolution?
Perhaps for clarity we should call the Doc's definition Creationist Evolution to distinguish it from other definitions.
That willful and disingenuous obfuscation would not in fact produce clarity.
And, again, it is not my definition. It is the definition used in this branch of science called "biology", I wonder if you've heard of it?

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CRR
Member (Idle past 2242 days)
Posts: 579
From: Australia
Joined: 10-19-2016


(1)
Message 258 of 936 (805219)
04-16-2017 9:25 PM
Reply to: Message 230 by Dr Adequate
04-16-2017 10:38 AM


Re: Heritable changes in a population.
Again, it's not my definition, it's science's definition.
No, that is a definition used in some places by some scientists; and quite a poor one as I have said. You don't speak for "science".
Just as one example Jerry Coyne gives a quite different definition in "Why Evolution is True". Population genetics uses a different definition.
Adding a black ram to a flock of white sheep will produce heritable changes in the population. First by gene flow when the ram is introduced, then by a change in allele frequencies over time as the ram gets to work.
Edited by CRR, : second "change" deleted in last paragraph.

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 Message 230 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-16-2017 10:38 AM Dr Adequate has replied

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 259 of 936 (805223)
04-16-2017 9:43 PM
Reply to: Message 258 by CRR
04-16-2017 9:25 PM


Re: Heritable changes in a population.
No, that is a definition used in some places by some scientists; and quite a poor one as I have said. You don't speak for "science".
How about the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, can they speak for science? 'Cos they say:
Evolution consists of changes in the heritable traits of a population of organisms.
Just as one example Jerry Coyne gives a quite different definition in "Why Evolution is True". Population genetics uses a different definition.
Oh really?
Population geneticists usually define ‘evolution’ as any change in a population's genetic composition over time.
Population Genetics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The change in the genetic makeup of a population over time, usually measured in terms of allele frequencies, is equivalent to evolutionary change.
http://www.biologyreference.com/...netics.html#ixzz4eSzR4K00
Allele frequency change over time is simply a definition of evolution. So population genetics is that branch of genetics that is concerned with the evolutionary processes of natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, migration, and non-random mating.
http://www.life.illinois.edu/ib/201/lectures/PopGen.pdf

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 Message 258 by CRR, posted 04-16-2017 9:25 PM CRR has replied

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CRR
Member (Idle past 2242 days)
Posts: 579
From: Australia
Joined: 10-19-2016


Message 260 of 936 (805224)
04-16-2017 9:44 PM
Reply to: Message 248 by Tangle
04-16-2017 7:28 PM


Peppered Moth
Ah, the Peppered Moth, poster child for evolution.
It probably was a mutation, a large insertion, although perhaps the dark variant had simply not been reported earlier.
Whether a mutation is beneficial is dependent on environment. Some could be detrimental in all environments, some beneficial in all environments, and some beneficial only in some environments.
In the case of the Peppered Moth it appears the dark variety was initially beneficial since its numbers increased and it became the dominant variety, but then the numbers decreased so that the white variety became most common, in which case the mutation became detrimental. Or perhaps it was neutral and we just observed genetic drift.
Perhaps it is like the sickle cell trait which is a loss of genetic information preventing the proper function of red blood cells but which has some net benefit in malaria prone areas. Even where malaria is prevalent the proportion of the defective allele never rises to more than 20% because of detrimental effects.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 261 of 936 (805226)
04-16-2017 9:52 PM
Reply to: Message 260 by CRR
04-16-2017 9:44 PM


Re: Peppered Moth
In the case of the Peppered Moth it appears the dark variety was initially beneficial since its numbers increased and it became the dominant variety, but then the numbers decreased so that the white variety became most common, in which case the mutation became detrimental. Or perhaps it was neutral and we just observed genetic drift.
Have you never bothered to read up on this? The environment changed. I suppose you could frame that as "the mutation became detrimental", but it sounds really odd: if I drowned, would you say "The mutations which produced land-dwelling tetrapods from fish suddenly became detrimental to him?"

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 262 of 936 (805236)
04-17-2017 1:29 AM
Reply to: Message 238 by CRR
04-16-2017 6:01 PM


Re: Universal common ancestry
Funny how your modification only makes your definition even less accurate.
Look, you can't simply take the common scientific view of what happened as defining a theory which is primarily about how such things happene - let alone tacking on an even which is not described by the theory. It would be like defining the theory of gravity in terms of the motions of the planets but leaving out any mention of the force of gravity itself - and then tacking on ideas about the origin of the matter that the planets are made of.

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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 263 of 936 (805240)
04-17-2017 3:01 AM
Reply to: Message 249 by Faith
04-16-2017 8:12 PM


Re: alleles/mutations?
Faith writes:
I hate to disillusion you, since you do so love your illusions, but even if a mutation is the cause of the switch in the peppered moths all you've proved is that very rarely a mutation does something beneficial, but in any case this is only an example of microevolution which has been known to occur for millennia, certainly no evidence for the ToE.
Yes, Faith, it's still a moth.
What it proves, as you now accept, is that mutations happen and that in the correct enviromental conditions they are selected for and create a change in the population that allows it to survive.
That's all the components of evolution observed and proven to exist. With the actual genes that mutated identified.
That's descent with modification and survival of the fittest on a stick. It's the smoking gun.
quote:
Once there was a final shortlist of 87 DNA differences between the black and pale lab moths, he and his colleagues tested whether each variation, one by one, was present in the wider variety of white moths found in the wild.
"After a long time we eventually managed to get down to a single one, 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.
Exactly how the mutation causes black colouring remains a mystery; cortex is not a gene with any known role in pigmentation.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

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Replies to this message:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 264 of 936 (805241)
04-17-2017 3:26 AM
Reply to: Message 260 by CRR
04-16-2017 9:44 PM


Re: Peppered Moth
CRR writes:
It probably was a mutation, a large insertion
Clever of you to spot that.
quote:
The carbonaria mutation was in fact a "jumping" piece of DNA, called a transposon, which had inserted itself into a gene called cortex.
Whether a mutation is beneficial is dependent on environment. Some could be detrimental in all environments, some beneficial in all environments, and some beneficial only in some environments.
Really, well done again!
quote:
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.
The mutation obviously has to have a survival advantage to be called beneficial. If the environment hadn't changed, the mutation would have harmed the moth by making it stand out against its background. The moth adapted to a change in its enviroment with a genetic change. That descent with modification, fittness and survival.
And that's evolution.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 260 by CRR, posted 04-16-2017 9:44 PM CRR has not replied

  
CRR
Member (Idle past 2242 days)
Posts: 579
From: Australia
Joined: 10-19-2016


Message 265 of 936 (805242)
04-17-2017 3:32 AM
Reply to: Message 259 by Dr Adequate
04-16-2017 9:43 PM


Re: Heritable changes in a population.
Or we could go to Evolution 101 at Berkley.
Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification.
...
The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor
Or from NCSE
Let us now look at the surviving meanings of evolution in order of increasing exactness, along with the names of some of the scientists with whom the ideas are associated (Bowler 1983, 1984; Mayr 1982; Mayr and Provine 1980; Ruse 1979/1999; see Figure 3).
I take the broadest definition of biological evolution to be:
Transmutation (descent with modification): This is the notion that new species emerge from existing species and that all existing species are the product of change in older ones. Early transmutationists: Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin (Charles's grandfather), Saint-Hilaire, Robert Chambers (author of theVestiges of Creation, first published in 1844), and Charles Darwin. This view was common by the 1830s, and Darwin did not invent the idea.
A slightly narrower conception of evolution:
Common ancestry: Related species have changed from a common ancestor species; that is, the reason that species are similar and are related in classification is because they have evolved from a shared ancestral species. This is also called phylogenetic change, or more simply, phylogeny. In a limited way, both Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin proposed common ancestry, but the first complete account was propounded by Charles Darwin.
Narrower still:
Biogeographic distribution: Related species arise as geographic neighbors; this is the view that no new species arises except in close contact with its most related species. This view was proposed by Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin. Of course, the fact that new species arise as biogeographic neighbors is explained by common ancestry, but Wallace formulated this model before the common ancestry model was published.
Or from the AAAS
Evolution is a broad, well-tested description of how Earth’s present-day life forms arose from common ancestors reaching back to the simplest one-celled organisms almost 4 billion years ago. It helps explain both the similarities and the differences in the enormous number of living organisms we see around us.
Edited by CRR, : Block quote added to AAAS

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 266 of 936 (805243)
04-17-2017 4:11 AM
Reply to: Message 263 by Tangle
04-17-2017 3:01 AM


Re: alleles/mutations?
Yes, Faith, it's still a moth.
Uh huh, and any change at that level proves absolutely nothing about the ToE. In many cases changes continue to accumulate in some portion of a population which entails a loss of information (a loss of genetic diversity) from change to change, rather than the increase the ToE needs to be true. And such changes can be quite rapid too, over a matter of a few years since all it takes is reproductive isolation and normal seasonal reproduction.
proves, as you now accept, is that mutations happen and that in the correct enviromental conditions they are selected for and create a change in the population that allows it to survive.
Yes, that's a possibility but as a matter of melancholy fact, when I did go to your link, (see Message 254) read the article, saw the video, I realized there is no evidence whatever that this was a mutation. It's just a normal allele that produces a darker moth, that got selected on one of its rare appearances.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 263 by Tangle, posted 04-17-2017 3:01 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 267 by Tangle, posted 04-17-2017 4:27 AM Faith has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 267 of 936 (805248)
04-17-2017 4:27 AM
Reply to: Message 266 by Faith
04-17-2017 4:11 AM


Re: alleles/mutations?
Faith writes:
Uh huh, and any change at that level proves absolutely nothing about the ToE.
It proves the process, the mechanism and the cause of change in a species, confirms descent with modification and a selection mechanism. That's all I suppose. Just all of it.
Yes, that's a possibility but as a matter of melancholy fact, when I did go to your link, read the article, saw the video, I realized there is no evidence whatever that this was a mutation. It's just a normal allele that produces a darker moth, that got selected on one of its rare appearances.
You really are quite remarkable. What do you think this statement is?
quote:
This focussed their attention on a stretch of the moth genome containing 400,000 bases, the individual links in the chain of DNA.
"We knew that within that 400,000 bases, there was some sequence that had to... cause the actual difference between the black type and the typical type," Dr Saccheri explained.
"So we went about an excruciatingly tedious process of identifying every single difference between the two types."
Once there was a final shortlist of 87 DNA differences between the black and pale lab moths, he and his colleagues tested whether each variation, one by one, was present in the wider variety of white moths found in the wild.
"After a long time we eventually managed to get down to a single one, 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.
They found a a gentic mutation Faith, a mutation that changed the moth's colour. NOT something that existed before but was selected for.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 266 by Faith, posted 04-17-2017 4:11 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 268 by Faith, posted 04-17-2017 4:36 AM Tangle has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 268 of 936 (805250)
04-17-2017 4:36 AM
Reply to: Message 267 by Tangle
04-17-2017 4:27 AM


Re: alleles/mutations?
Or all they found was the exact formula of the particular allele that was already present in the population.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 267 by Tangle, posted 04-17-2017 4:27 AM Tangle has replied

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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 269 of 936 (805255)
04-17-2017 4:55 AM
Reply to: Message 268 by Faith
04-17-2017 4:36 AM


Re: alleles/mutations?
Faith writes:
Or all they found was the exact formula of the particular allele that was already present in the population.
It's a fucking mutation. What on earth do you think a mutation is?
quote:
The carbonaria mutation was in fact a "jumping" piece of DNA, called a transposon, which had inserted itself into a gene called cortex......Exactly how the mutation causes black colouring remains a mystery; cortex is not a gene with any known role in pigmentation..... A close look at the stretches right next to the cortex mutation showed very little scrambling; this was a recent event.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 268 by Faith, posted 04-17-2017 4:36 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 270 by Faith, posted 04-17-2017 5:02 AM Tangle has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 270 of 936 (805256)
04-17-2017 5:02 AM
Reply to: Message 269 by Tangle
04-17-2017 4:55 AM


Re: alleles/mutations?
They don't know that, tangle. There's this segment of the gene that has the order of a transposon, which leads to the assumption that it was originally a mutation. Not evidence, assumption.

This message is a reply to:
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