Summations Only

The article did not give enough information on the duplicates. Were they protein coding? Were they definitely duplicates or were there two similar breeds in the same environment, one of which proliferated under certain conditions, the other dying off?Maybe the more complex population was the original population, and the less complex population died off under certain conditions? Evolutionists often assume increased complexity over time, which is an assumption.You cannot trust the conclusions without looking at the evidence for the conclusions, I prefer to look at the evidence, of which very little was put forward in that article.

You can read the full article here:http://www.nature.com/...journal/v280/n5718/pdf/280140a0.pdfThe gene produces a protein with carboxylesterase activity. Through duplication, the aphids have higher carboxylesterase activity which confers resistance to the insecticide. More importantly, they are able to find both the single copy variant and the double copy variant amongst living aphids. No, we don't. There are many parasites and sessile organisms that are simple now but evolved from more complex ancestors. We simply look at what the fossil and genetic record indicate.In addition, the number of genes and/or size of the genome has little relevance to the complexity of the organism. For example, a single celled amoeba has a genome with 670 billion bases compared to the human genome which only has a paltry 6 billion bases. The pufferfish is not that much less complex than we are, but it's genome is only around 0.4 billion bases. A review of your previous posts shows that this is not the case. You make many claims that are not supported by evidence.

Taq, unfortunately they seem to want me to pay $34 to read that article so I will have to take your word on it. So you say the duplicate gene did produce proteins.Now about the duplication, was it a currently observed duplication from a population that only had one such gene or was the "duplication" assumed to be a duplication of that gene from times past? Sometimes genes are similar, and sometimes one may get disabled over time, and then that dormant gene could get deselected out the population.Regarding unsupported claims, I am new here and explaining my worldview, but I will be more careful in future to provide supporting evidence, thanks for pointing that out.

I guess my institute affiliations got me past the pay wall. Sorry about that. To answer your question, yes, it produced a protein. Specifically, it produced a carboxylesterase. Some aphids in the population did not have the duplication while others did. When insecticides were introduced to their environment the duplication quickly became the dominant genotype. Both genes, the original and the duplicate, produced an active enzyme.

No problem. regarding the duplication, I feel maybe you misunderstood my question. Why would you feel that a duplication has taken place in this particular instance.The other alternatives are
a) two similar but seperate species of aphids
b) A sub-species of the aphid had a missing gene. In most conditions it retained fitness. This subspecies had less resistance to pesticide than the original species.Edited by mindspawn, : Clarification

Once again I should point out to you that you don't know what the theory of evolution is or what "evolutionists" think or why they think it.This is going to be a huge disadvantage to you if you want to argue against evolution. On the other hand, it's going to be a huge advantage to you if you want to think that you're arguing against evolution.The question before you is this: which would you rather do?

Dr A, that's too theoretical for me. Its just when we are discussing an example of possible duplication, there is the possiblity of a mutation involving a lost gene, instead of a mutation involving a duplicated gene. Nothing wrong in checking for this. I have been in discussions with evolutionists before during which they insisted the more complex organism came first without any evidence for it.

I'm sure this is true. Plenty of people misunderstand the theory of evolution. I don't purport to understand the theory of evolution on the level that an undergraduate in biology would, and certainly not on the level of a scientist. That said, there are of course situations where we do identify a complex organism as having evolved from a less complex organism, but the theory of evolution is based on changes in species that result in fitness rather than complexity.I don't feel any motivation to defend any misconceptions an 'evolutionist' might have or that an creationist might have of what the theory of evolution actually state. That would be folly.Those misconceptions are one reason I find the term 'evolutonist' to both silly and derogatory. The term is used to cover inane beliefs that creationists think I hold, which I actually do not hold.

"That said, there are of course situations where we do identify a complex organism as having evolved from a less complex organism, but the theory of evolution is based on changes in species that result in fitness rather than complexity."NoNukes, you say "of course", but I haven't seen any convincing cases yet involving added active coding genes, where the complexity comes later, and fitness is improved. Taq is making some good points, maybe he can convince me that the complexity came later in his example.

Because we have aphids without the duplication and aphids with the duplication in the same population. They are the same species. That option is out. There were no sub-species either. They freely mated throughout the population. Also, the gene isn't "missing". It just so happened that the duplication had not spread through the entire population yet.

There really isn't a strong correlation between complexity and number of genes as I have already shown. A single celled amoeba has a genome 100 times to 200 times larger than ours. The puffer fish has a genome that is a fraction the size of ours, and yet they are about as complex as we are.

Do you have any reason to believe that it couldn't happen naturally?

"There were no sub-species either. They freely mated throughout the population. Also, the gene isn't "missing". It just so happened that the duplication had not spread through the entire population yet."Why do you eliminate the possibility that it was a deletion that was being eliminated from the population? ie there is the possibility that the original population had two of these genes, some of the later population had one such gene which was fine until confronted by pesticides and this exposed the vulnerability of the later mutation.Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

Yes, I would say unlikely ever to happen, not impossible. My reason is that when you duplicate the proteins produced you normally get a less fit organism because of the excess proteins causing imbalance in the organism. The proteins required for each function are very precise and even a slight increase in protein production through insertions within a gene can decrease fitness (Huntington's disease). Major duplications of entire chromosomes cause major loss of fitness as in Down's syndrome. So the likelihood of an entire gene being duplicated without damage to an organism is small, that's why i need proof that this was a duplication and not a deletion. Without the proof that the original population was devoid of the duplicates, the whole point is meaningless.Edited by mindspawn, : clarifying my point.Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

I did not claim that I had proven anything. I said "of course" we do identify cases where evolution results in increased complexity, but that the theory of evolution did not require increased complexity.My statement is in response to your statement that 'evolutionists' say that evolution means complexity always increases. In short, I am disagreeing with you only about what the theory of evolution actually says.