Age and Down Syndrome?

When a gene is mutated, I don't see anything wrong with saying the gene has been damaged.You do?

I do. At the molecular level it's a change. At the organism level it may be damage if it reduces the organism's ability to survive and reproduce.It's sloppy terminology to just willy-nilly call it "damage".

I do. "Damage" implies something has been altered from how it should work. Genes are "supposed" to work one way or another. Genes can change for the worse, but I don't like using a word like "damaged"

So you've got some DNA, doing its self replicating thing... there's a string of genes coming through and then, whoops, a mistake is made and it isn't copied properly. Seems to me that saying that gene was "damaged" isn't that big of a deal, but I'll grant you that its a bit sloppy.

Oh, I dunno, they do refer to the process of mutation as copying errors. Genes are the way they are until something goes wrong and then they become different. I suppose "damage" can have some unnecessary implications, but I don't think its that far off.

Oh yes it is! Look up the definition of damaged. What you described was change.

It isn't the biggest deal, but to be clear, the "errors" that they commonly refer to are the errors in copying the DNA perfectly, not errors as in damaging the product.

The thing is that some of those copying errors produce improvements in the organism. It's only the ongoing history of the species that tells us whether an "error" was "damage" or not.

But you could still call it damage to the gene.If you damage the roof my car, but then it ends up going faster, I don't think there should be a problem with saying the roof was damaged.

Argument via Dictionary is the worst. Damage is a type of change.According to google:

quote:

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Damage

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verb
1.
inflict physical harm on (something) so as to impair its value, usefulness, or normal function.

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bold addedWhen a gene's normal function is altered because of a physical change, it can be said that it has been damaged. Yeah, and I'm saying the gene was damaged, not the organism.

That Google definition is worthless, because it says "inflict physical harm on [something] so as to impair its value, usefulness, or normal function". "Normal" is subjective, and genetic mutations are not physical "harm", because again, harm is subjective. Remind me about why we are arguing this again?

Your position is ridiculous. If you alter a gene so that it does not produce it's helpful function, you want to say that there is no genetic damage? What you are then saying is that there is no such thing as damage to the genome. In short, you are attempting to define damage in some narrow way so that mutations or any other changes to a gene are not damage. So if I a mutation made you sterile, that wouldn't be damaging, right?I suggest that you think through what you are saying and that you come up with a better argument. You cannot use a single example to prove that no mutations cause damage.

For the last time, my entire position is just that damage is not a good word to use in this context. Damage is simply not the correct terminology! That's all I'm saying, for God's sake!

You're the one who told me to look it up! Normal is what the gene did before it was mutated. Yeah, but the gene is still being changed physically. Its not what it was before. I still don't have a problem calling that "damage".

"Look it up" isn't synonymous with "Google it".And is it? Is "normal" defined as what the gene did before the mutation? Isn't that gene, then, abnormal based on what it is a mutation of?It isn't what it was before, but is that necessarily "damage"? I understand where you are coming from and don't doubt your knowledge, I'm just saying that damage is a poor word to use, because it implies certain things, like tampering. The way "damage" is usually used, it implies someone tampered with something and caused it harm.