Iconic Peppered Moth - gene mutation found

I don't think so.

Selection changes over time just as the genome changes over time. The environment at any given moment and location will be different from some other location and time.

Would make an interesting thread?

Faith writes: If you'd been following my posts you would know that this is exactly what I said would be the situation if the black moth alleles were built in. While the whites were selected the blacks would show up from time to time in heterozygous form and be picked off by predators. It was only when the whites started getting picked off instead (selected against) that the blacks could start to multiply. But Faith you have provided no evidence of any built in conditions and all the evidence shows that is NOT the case nor have you provided a model, process, mechanism, procedure or thingamabob that would explain how the genes would get transferred when the critter gets eaten immediately.

Of course you've changed the subject. How predictable. How's about taking a break from your rote response long enough to grant that I made exactly the same point you claimed I didn't understand, that IF the alleles are built in they would follow exactly the pattern you claim for mutations -- and a lot more efficiently for the reasons I gave that mutations are at a disadvantage.

And showing that mutations are a crock ought to count for something in favor of my point of view and I've certainly shown they are a crock in this and other posts.

You're the master of blather. Try acknowledging the very simple obvious point I made please.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith writes: Of course you've changed the subject. How predictable. How's about taking a break from your rote response long enough to grant that I made exactly the same point you claimed I didn't understand, that IF the alleles are built in they would follow exactly the pattern you claim for mutations -- and a lot more efficiently for the reasons I gave that mutations are at a disadvantage.

There is a difference between unsupported assertions Faith and support for a theory.

You need to provide evidence the alleles are built in and so far you have never done that.

Faith writes: And showing that mutations are a crock ought to count for something in favor of my point of view and I've certainly shown they are a crock in this and other posts. You're the master of blather. Try acknowledging the very simple obvious point I made please.

But you have not shown mutations are a crock and ALL of the evidence shows that mutations happen constantly.

You have not yet made a point, only unsupported assertions.

Mutation is in fact harder to explain. See my post to jar above. There is something very very weird about the idea that it was a mutation instead of built-in for the reasons I give there.

You know the dark allele is dominant, right? So if it had existed before the early nineteenth century then don't you think someone would have noticed it? And if it was magicked into existence by God In The Beginning, then wouldn't 6,000 years of natural selection have removed it from the gene pool before pollution made it beneficial?

You either need many same or similar mutations at the same locus to counteract the constant loss to predation, which doesn't fit with the general observations of mutations as random accidents of replication, or you have to count on one mutation surviving against ridiculous odds, or showing up so exactly at the right time that only a teleological mechanism could explain it. Not what the ToE normally has in mind.

This is more or less incomprehensible. What you actually need is for the mutation to show up and be favored by natural selection. Mutations occur, and natural selection would have favored this one. Any questions?

If there is any reasoning behind your false trichotomy, you have failed to demonstrate it, though I'm gonna guess that the Sharpshooter Fallacy is involved somewhere.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I'm trying to think through Faith's built in genes vs. mutations.

How precisely are genes located on the chromosome? If Faith is right, each variation of a gene would have to be in a slightly different location with surrounding alternative genes degraded to "junk dna"

If the change is due to mutation, wouldn't the gene be in the same exact location with other functioning genes surrounding it?

Faith writes: That much is common knowledge, and quite easily explained in terms of a built-in allele for the black moth.

There was no 'built in allele for the black moth'. This isn't blue or brown eyes.

We know conclusively that the black colouration is the result of a mutation. We know which gene caused it and we can date it.

Mutation is in fact harder to explain.

The mutation has been explained totally and incredibly diligently - it took 15 years of painstaking experiment. The fact that YOU find it difficult to accept is irrelevant.

There's no hiding place Faith, this is the smoking gun.

Interesting of course that you don't even consider what I actually said about why mutations are harder to explain. Try it.

This is more or less incomprehensible. What you actually need is for the mutation to show up and be favored by natural selection. Mutations occur, and natural selection would have favored this one. Any questions?

It would have favored it only at precisely exactly the right time for it to fit into the newly blackened environment. Otherwise it would have been eaten. Do follow the argument. Really. Make an effort to follow the argument.

I don't know why it wasn't noticed but it must have arisen earlier, because it makes less sense for it to have arisen "just in time" to be selected. Most mutations are said to have been present some time before they get selected anyway. It's just that this situation is peculiarly high pressure -- get selected NOW or die!

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith writes: Interesting of course that you don't even consider what I actually said about why mutations are harder to explain. Try it.

Whether this is true or not (it's not of course) is totally irrelevant because it *happened*.

Got that? It happened. The thing you say can't happen has been shown to have happened. The thing that the theory predicts happened.

I see that your final resort is to say that goddidit. God plays directly with moth evolution now does he?

t would have favored it only at precisely exactly the right time for it to fit into the newly blackened environment. Otherwise it would have been eaten. Do follow the argument. Really. Make an effort to follow the argument.

Why is that your argument? Not only is that true (apart from the pharse "precisely exactly", since the Industrial Revolution didn't happen at one single instant of time, but rather went on for a bit) but also it appears to contradict everything else you're saying, such as:

I don't know why it wasn't noticed but it must have arisen earlier ...

It (or a mutation having the same effect) may well have done. A quick look on google shows that melanism does occur now and then in the animal kingdom. But then it would have been eaten, because of being anti-adaptive. So it had to happen again. Hence the evidence that this particular mutation dates from the early nineteenth century.

Most mutations are said to have been present some time before they get selected anyway.

Well, naturally they occur before they're selected for. But "some time before"? How much time, and by whom is this said?

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

wouldn't 6,000 years of natural selection have removed it from the gene pool before pollution made it beneficial?

Yeah, especially since it is part of a fairly large genus, Biston, that presumably diversified rapidly after the flood into 54 species and 40 subspecies culling alleles at every population split / speciation event. It's lucky it has any alleles at all.

HBD

I haven't said it can't happen. But exploring the consequences of different scenarios makes it highly improbable this was a mutation. Unless it was a very old mutation that kept popping up from time to time anyway, most of the time to be eaten by birds, many years before being selected. In which case it might as well be a built-in allele anyway. Righto, I don't trust this kind of science.

But exploring the consequences of different scenarios makes it highly improbable this was a mutation

Please explain how you explored the consequences and show how you arrived at your probability estimate.

As if.

Faith writes: Righto, I don't trust this kind of science.

You do understand Faith that whether or not you "trust this kind of science" is irrelevant; it is still the only science we have.

It seems though that what you don't trust has nothing to do with the science but rather the conclusions that show your interpretation of the Bible stories is false.

Faith writes: But exploring the consequences of different scenarios makes it highly improbable this was a mutation.

Yet the very study under discussion shows that not only was it a mutation but a specific mutation that dates from a specific period of time.

Where is your study, model, method, process, procedure, thingamabob that we can compare to this study?

I'm trying to think through Faith's built in genes vs. mutations.

Actually it is rather easy. You see all this genetic material is just lying around in the genome (and a lot of it is stored in junk files), and there are three ways these built-in genes become activated:

1. an inactive gene section is moved into an active section of the genome and goes to work, or
   
2. a previously active gene has the blocking mechanism that prevented it from being active removed.
   
3. an activator section is moved to where an inactive built-in gene resides, turning it on.

Don't you dare call these "mutations" though (that is an evilutionist assumption), because these are brought about by simple recombination of the existing genes in small populations, when they were suppressed in larger populations.

Enjoy

Edited by RAZD, : #3