Mutation

In perusing the board, I came across just what I was looking for: mutations. I am doing a paper on evolution, and I REALLY don't want to misrepresent it. Already, a few reasons have been stated as for how mutations are important and how they work, and I have a basic idea of all of that. I just had a few questions.1) Assuming that benefits in mutations are helpful traits that increase the organism's (and its offspring's) chances of survival, what are some obvious practical mutations that caused man to evolve into what he is today? Do we know of any?2) If mutations and natural selection are not the key ways that evolution occurs, what are?3) How can examples such as finch beaks be used as proof of helpful mutations when no new species is created? (By this, I suppose I am assuming that the helpful mutations create new species - please correct me if I am wrong).I will probably have more questions later. Also, please try to describe stuff without a lot of the technical jargon that is sometimes used. When it is used, it becomes really boring and hard to understand. I want to write a paper that helps people to understand the issue, not get confused by it. And thanks for any help.Finally, this last part is the start of my section on the paper. Please point out any areas that seem to be wrong or something. As I said, I am doing this to understand the subject, and to represent evolutionists as they would want to be represented. If you can help out, great, if not, no problem. Thanks for any feedback.My Paper:Mutations and natural selection are the key factors that cause evolution. How do mutations and natural selection work? Mutations alter DNA, for the better or for worse. All organisms that are affected by mutations, if they have offspring, future generations are also affected by this mutation. Most mutations are harmful, but there are some that may, in some way, improve the organisms state of being. That is where natural selection plays its role. Natural selection destroys the weak organisms, while the strong ones survive. In a sense, natural selection is like a computer word processor, except in nature. Mutations spit out random letters into the evaluator, and if the letter is one that is going to be used to help construct the sentence the creator of the processor has programed it to create. Evolutionist claim that nature created this word selection processor. Mutations make a split in the line, and this is where the line in ancestors splits to create two or more new species. If the newly mutated form, such as a finch with a larger beak, can survive better because in hardships, it can reach the food source, and others cannot, then the mutated form lives on, and the old form dies out, via natural selection.How does nature know which creatures to select? Simply whichever species has the advantage, and can survive against the many threats of nature. The word processor does not have a selector in the sense that it has been preprogrammed to accept only the most robust letters. Only those letters survive the journey. Natural selection is close in relation to the survival of the fittest. If an organism can help out nature, and it can survive nature, it will continue to exist.

Crashfrog: I had a few questions to your response (by the way, thanks for that)How can one tell that the developed throats and brain are a result of mutations? Also, doesn't that assume right off that evolution is how we came to exist. (i'm not necessarily saying that's wrong, but just wondering) It also seems that it would be hard to tell the timing of these mutations, correct?Thanks for correcting me on the harmful part of mutations. Isn't it true that mutations are rather rare? How could the evolution of a species occurred if only a few, or a single species got that genetic mutation? Wouldn't the greater population of other (birds for example) make it so that the new mutated form would never get a chance to gain into a majority, unless you have a case of the reproductive isolation that you talked about? Even then, isn't it a bit extreme to say that all evolution happened due to reproductive isolation (maybe you don't say this, but that's what you seemed to imply)?And please pardon my ignorance, but how is it that the environment determines the outcome of mutations? I just have never heard of that before, and so I am curious.

I have a few more questions:It seems that it is generally agreed upon that most mutations are neutral, some are harmful, and even fewer are beneficial. It has been said that beneficial simply means that the organism can reproduce faster than its counterparts.How might one define a mutation? I understand it is the change in allele frequencies, or something like that. What are some common day examples of beneficial mutations in humans? Do we know of any? Do mutations really occur fast enough to lend credibility to the theory of evolution? In other words, are there enough beneficial mutations to explain why humans evolved so quickly into what they are today? Aren't most mutations sterile, or unable to reproduce?I thought that mutations more often take things away than provide new, helpful things. For example, when mutations take out teeth, that is not exactly beneficial, is it? How would such a thing help faster reproduction (if indeed that is the definition of beneficial)? It seems like when people refer to "beneficial" they mean two things: Helpful to the organism, and able to make reproduction faster and more numerous. Is this equiviating on the term?And crashfrog, I am sorry I misunderstood. What would you say is the difference between evolution and speciation? Can evolution occur without speciation? If so, what is the organism evolving into that is new? Can there be any significant evolution within a species? Finally, are evolutions and mutations somewhat synomous, or is there no direct relation?

Coragyps,Thanks for the site. Unfortunately, I didn't find any stuff about mutations in it though.

Crashfrog,The people with no wisdom teeth example you sited is not necessarily beneficial. In some people (and I am not sure of the numbers on this), wisdom teeth never affect them in a negative way. I would argue that a lack of wisdom teeth could be beneficial, but is more often neutral, because those people might not have even had a problem with wisdom teeth in the first place. I believe I have heard it said that only about 1/5 of people actually have problems with their wisdom teeth - again, please let me know if I am unreasonably off.With my question about mutations being sterile, I simply meant I didn't think that those mutations were passed on to various generations in a beneficial way, if at all. I wasn't referring to fertility.The way one determines how a mutation is beneficial seems somewhat abitrary, since it relies on the environment. Removing that variable, is it impossible to determine if a mutation is beneficial or not? For example, getting a thick mat of hair all over your body would be beneficial in Alaska, but not in a desert. If environment did not matter, the coat wouldn't either, would it?And thanks for clarifying what evolves, the population, not the organism. Would this mean that I could not evolve, but my son could? In order to evolve, he would need to aquire beneficial traits that I lack, yes?Up until this point, people have been talking as if there is only one kind of mutation. Would someone be able to give statistics and/or definitions to various kinds of mutations? For example, chromosonal mutations are different than frameshift mutations.The biology textbook by Miller and Levine (published in 1995, i think), goes into greater detail on this. The text says that a frameshift mutation, in which a single base is inserted or deleted can be lethal. Groups of mRNA are shifted. The result of this mutation is that it could alter the poly-peptide product of a gene. Then the cell would produce the wrong sorts of products, or starve and harm the body.Chromosomal mutations, such as polyploidy (the condition in which an organism has extra sets of chromosomes) are "almost always fatal in animals."Now i got this information from their textbook. While I do not completely understand how what they are describing works, it seems clear that mutations are somewhat harmful. It made me wonder about mutations when I didn't find any examples of beneficial mutations in the text. I suppose I might have missed them. If anyone can show me how these mutations work, and how they might be beneficial in the process of evolution (micro or macro), then I would be very appreciative. In the same section (p. 212 and 213), they had examples of mutations that looked nasty, such as a frog with extra hind legs, and that didn't look like it could help the frog in any way.Finally, I have been hearing things about fruitflies. Many generations of them have been experimented on and introduced to radiation. There were some flies that got 2 sets of wings, but these couldn't even fly. It made me wonder: if we as a guiding intelligence can't even produce a new species of flies by mutations in a lab, how in the world does an unguided nature do it by mutations??? Maybe I haven't been introduced to enough high level reasoning, but it seems at this point in time that relying on mutations to cause any type of beneficial evolution on the large scale and short timeframe that we evolved in is impossible to accomplish by mutations. Are there any examples of major mutations leading to new classes and phyla (when it would be necessary to even create new Kingdoms for the evolutionary theory held today to have credibility? To me, it seems like evolution by mutations is self defeating. Please answer this so that I can understand either where my knowledge is lacking, or (if possible) the theory of evolution is lacking.Thanks,
Servus Dei

Crashfrog,Thanks for you patience, and for answering all of my questions. I want to continue this, but since it is Easter, I need to wait a couple days until I have the time to properly respond. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Servus Dei

What do you all think of Dr. Michael's Behe's argument of Irreducible complexity, which he sets forth in Darwin's Black Box?To give anyone who hasn't read it a hand into what it says, he basically argues that any organ that couldn't be made by mutations is proof that evolution didn't occur. He uses Darwin's words,"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."If he could show that an organ, and he uses the examples of the human eye and the bacterial flagellum, could not have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications or mutations, then evolution would fall apart. He calls this irreducible complexity, where an organ was such that it could not have been made simple to complex, in other words, it is impossible to make it less complex and have it still exist.He later shows how the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex. Out of the 40 parts the flagellum is made up of, only 10 have those parts in common with others. The other 30 are unique, and so couldn't have been borrowed, and there isn't any evidence that those parts evolved. Behe agrees with Darwin, and shows how the theory breaks down.Does anyone have a way they have been responding to this objection?

Another question I have been wondering about:The 500 million years between the Cambrian Explosion and now has been said to be like the day before yesterday in the evolutionary timescale. How could man as we are today have evolved from the creatures we see in the Cambrian Explosion in such a short time period? Wouldn't it require a lot more mutations and time? Remember, a mutation is a single change in the line of DNA (or instructions), it can't change a frog into a dog. No one would believe such an incredulous thing anyway, but it is just as incredible to me how a brilliant, reasoning man could have come from the Cambrian Explosion creatures in such a short period of time. Why should hundreds of millions of years make the difference? If mutations take so long to be passed on, and so few seem to be beneficial, wouldn't 500 billion years be closer to how long it might take?

I like that stone arch argument. It seems to be solidly logical, but when you think about it, there are ways around it. You would need to create the scaffolding to build the arch on. Things would need to hold the arches up. It's a good argument, but you still need to account for the contruction of the scaffolding. It kinda runs into the timing issue: There needs to be enough time for the arch to be built, and have the supports decay or be removed. Note that this is not for just one arch, but for the entire world as we see it today. Once you realize on what a large scale the universe is complex in, in living things and nonliving, you get the idea that it would take too long for it to happen.This probably isn't the appropriate thread to discuss this point, so I hope that after this objection is answered we can get back on topic.

Crashfrog,Please correct me if I am reading into what you are saying instead of just showing what your argument leads to:You don't have a problem with a man winning 3 lottery jackpots. If this hasn't even happened once (or maybe just a couple times) in the years that the lottery has existed (or say the last 20 years). If you only had one beneficial mutation like this that created insect wings in 3 years, would this really help the population to increase? If 3 mutations (or three jackpots) caused 1 insect to have wings, and thus a new species, could this rate of winning the jackpot account for different genus over millions of years? How about a class? Could mutations at a rate even faster than this cause the five kingdoms we see today in only 500 million years?And for the objection that 500 million years is a long time, from our view, I would certainly agree. But it has been said that on the evolutionary timescale that 500 million years is not that long. Granted recent science says the universe is only 14 billion years old.

Also, the idea that irreducible complexity is wrong, as organisms can create parts and pull those in making more complex organisms is called the cooption theory. Miller uses the cooption theory in his response to Behe's mousetrap design. He says that the mousetrap was not made irreducibly complex, but it was built up to that point by the combination of other parts. He says that the mousetrap could have been part of a tie clip before, as an example.The main problem with this logic is the assembly of the pieces. What has acted on the stone arch to make it assemble? Natural selection can not account for it, as natural selection can only take away thing. Mutations might have set out the pieces, but it cannot put them together. And time, which most would argue as the thing that assembles it all is flawed because time by itself can't do anything. If the person is appealing to erosion, how did the rock get upright in the first place to erode it? Something must have put the rock there, or created the rock. If there were pieces that the arch is made up of, and a scaffold was used, what but a guiding intelligence would have put it there in the first place? Even if all the pieces were set up to be assembled (which in and of itself it very unlikely, if not impossible), there is not a logical explanation as to what could have moved those blocks onto the scaffold. Who cut the blocks? Who moved the blocks to the location in the first place? Who made a structure that could support the weight of the stones? Every part of the construction begs for a guiding intellegence. If it could be shown that evolution and nature and time could account for all the steps in the process of building an arch, then the theory of evolution would be a plausible explanation of the construction. Otherwise, evolution isn't an option.And someone mentioned: it seems like I am trying to disprove evolution because I am afraid of that as an option, that isn't true. I just don't think that evolution can logically show the origin of life and the universe as exists today. Intelligent Design makes more sense to me, but that's for another thread.

Asgara:"One problem that I see with the analogy is this, it isn't a matter of one person winning the big one three times. It's a matter of the lottery being won once by any person in each of three successive generations."I agree completely. I am not sure what side you were intending for this to support, but I would completely agree with your statement, because that is the probability that is necessary for evolution of the species to occur. This is one of the reasons I disagree with evolution, as it is very improbable for the chances that are necessary for this to happen. It seems that it takes more faith to believe in the complexities of evolution than any designed universe; of course others disagree though.

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The main problem with this logic is the assembly of the pieces. What has acted on the stone arch to make it assemble? Natural selection can not account for it, as natural selection can only take away thing. Mutations might have set out the pieces, but it cannot put them together. And time, which most would argue as the thing that assembles it all is flawed because time by itself can't do anything.

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Of course each mechanism can not "build the arch" by itself. It is the combination of the mechanisms. Mutation creates the pieces, and natural selection determines which pieces stay and which go. In your post, you forgot that natural selection also keeps the good pieces which is an important point. Natural selection causes the accretion of multiple beneficial mutations as much as it removes the bad mutations. Given time, these mechanisms can create complex structures from the selection of good pieces from the ongoing development of pieces through mutation.

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My point in this is that the pieces are created, but they are not put in an assembled format. It may be true that natural selection keeps the good pieces, but how was this created in the first place? I think I understand the argument, but my objection lies with the fact that (to apply this again to the stone arch idea) you can have all of the stones laid out and ready, and you can have your natural selection take away all of the broken stones; even assuming you have all of the pieces (which is a big assumption), you still need to account for the assembly of the arch. Some unnatural force exerts itself on the stones, and lifts them into place. It first designs the arch, and builds a scaffolding to help support it. Then it constructs the arch. I don't see how time could construct it, and as the construction of such and orderly thing seems to go against the law of entropy, it would be breaking the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

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If it could be shown that evolution and nature and time could account for all the steps in the process of building an arch, then the theory of evolution would be a plausible explanation of the construction. Otherwise, evolution isn't an option.

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Please explain how mutation and selection is incapable of explaining the biological structures we see today.

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I tried to explain this above. For further clarification: If you see mutations creating the pieces to be used, and natural selection getting rid of the bad pieces, there is still something missing. That would be the assembly. It seems that the evolutionists appeal to time as the constructing agent. Things naturally decay, and as the second law of thermodynamics says, that entropy occurs, not a focused reconstruction of orderly things. If I leave my room and never spend the concerted effort to clean it, it will gradually become a disgusting pit. Why is nature different?

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it seems like I am trying to disprove evolution because I am afraid of that as an option, that isn't true.

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More of a rhetorical question, but if you hadn't read the Bible would you still have a problem with evolution? In other words, do you object for scientific reasons or religious reasons? Again, more of a rhetorical question but it still shows how our non-scientific preconceptions can taint our objectivity.

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Your rhetorical question is a good one. I will chose to answer it by saying the truth: I truely don't know if I would still have a problem with evolution if I hadn't read the bible. That is one of my biases that I bring to the scientific field. Hopefully, you will admit your biases toward evolution. We all bring biases to the table, but people don't like to mention them. Men see biases in others easier than they see them in themselves. No one can be truely objective, or unbiased in their studies. I will carry the presuppositions that there is a God who made the world, and thus there is a supernatural realm. You, and others, might think that it is a primitive view, and you don't want to admit your own bias toward evolution and a naturalistic view of the world. An honest man will recognize his biases, and try to use scientific evidence to support what he believes. That is what I try to do, and what I would hope you try to do as well. So it is my hope that you examine the argument and evidence for what it is, and let the evidence inform your presuppositions, beliefs, and biases.

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I just don't think that evolution can logically show the origin of life and the universe as exists today.

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You should realize that evolution says nothing about the start of life, only the diversification of life once it was started. Also, evolution has nothing to do with how stars form. You might as well be saying that Darwin talked about the evolution of electronic media. Hey, I think I found another type of evolution to add to Hovind's list..

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I do realize that most people believe what you are saying. The reason I disagree is because evolution hinges on certain presuppositions, such as naturalism. Also, it assumes that matter and the universe already existed, or were created, or something. You are saying that it is irrelevant; the theory picks up from that point on. I am arguing that one must deal with the beginning of life AND matter, as evolution presupposes certain things about how the universe existed before life. What I am trying to do in part in a paper that i am writing, is show how when you presuppose certain things about the creation of matter to get to the theory, you must deal with those presuppositions. If those presuppostions can be disproved, rather - shown to be weak (as science deals with inductive logic), then the theory itself has no ground to stand on. Hopefully you understand what I am saying - but you will probably disagree with me.But back to the topic. Did I answer you in a way that you could understand? Hopefully so. I will be busy for the next few days, and it will probably take me a while before I can reply to anything, so please be patient. Thanks.