Iconic Peppered Moth - gene mutation found

But if this is a dominant allele the black moths wouldn't show up 'from time to time'. They would, of necessity, need to be present in every single generation. And they would be selected against - a dominant allele which is selected against will vanish from a population much more quickly than a recessive one, since any individual carrying the allele is subject to whatever causes the negative selection pressure (in this case being easier to eat). You don't need the exact same mutation. I imagine something like being black can be acheived in a huge diversity of ways. For a similar example in humans, we can see that Europeans and east Asians have light skin due to different mutations. In both cases people moved to higher latitudes where lighter skin would be beneficial, and in both cases a mutation arose which caused lighter skin, but it was not the same in each case. The specific mutation selected for was the one which happened to come along at the right time. The same is true of lactase persistence in humans, northern Europeans and east Africans both evolved lactase persistence independently and the genetic basis is different in each case.

But in very small numbers, because they WOULD be picked off by predators. Not all that show up but most. And all I was doing was saying exactly what jar had already said about what would have had to happen, only in my scenario it's not a mutation, just a naturally-occurring alternate form of the gene. According to the study, however, it's not a gene that normally codes for color. But my point was that it shouldn't matter if it's a mutation or a built-in variation, it can only arise sporadically and couldn't survive in great numbers. If it survived at all. Right, but is it more unlikely that the allele would not completely disappear but remain and show up rarely, than a mutation simply showing up just in time to be selected against the black trees? It seems to me every possible scenario has some problem attached to it. Well the study pinned it down to a specific change in a specific gene at a specific time -- the year 1819 -- and a gene not normally associated with color. Then how is this "mutation" if it "comes along at the right time?" Is mutation a random accident of replication or is it an inevitable requirement of genetics? Which is it????There is absolutely no reason why skin color has to be the result of a mutation anyway. There is a huge range of skin color built into the human genome going back to Adam and Eve. If you weren't all expecting to find mutations to explain everything, I wonder if you would find them.

The scientists that worked on this problem took 15 years over it. You, with your expert knowledge of experimental molecular genetics think that you've explored the consequencies of different scenarios? You haven't even read the paper have you, let alone 'explored the different scenarios'? Your hubris is extraordinary. If you read just the citation it tells you exactly what the mutation was

quote:

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insertion of a large, tandemly repeated, transposable element into the first intron of the gene cortex.

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Well we'll just have to add another group of important sciences that Faith disaproves of because they produce inconvenient results. I think we're pretty close to the whole set now.

Yes we would, they are unmistakably present.If you weren't dedicated to blindness you'd find them too.

Yes, but it didn't have to be that mutation. If another mutation causing dark pigmentation had arisen in northern England, we'd be talking about that one instead. The point is that there are many different random accidents that can have the same effect. They don't come along only at just the right time. Some of them crop up at the wrong time, but then since it is the wrong time they are selected out of the population. If Adam and Eve were diploid, like all mammals, then they had no more than four alleles at any locus - two for Adam, two for Eve. And yet we know that there are hundreds of different alleles for some loci in modern humans. Mutation is a requirement of Biblical literalism.

The strongest test of a theory is that it makes predictions that can be tested. The ToE predicts mutations as a mechanism for change in organisms. It's been a remarkable difficult thing to test experimentally but the fact that it has, is confirmation of the theory.Second, as it has been demonstrated that mutations exist, your wonderings are irrelevant.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Actually, since Eve was cloned, Eve's alleles were Adam's.

She can't have been an exact clone, on account of being female. We need to allow some God-magic in the crafting of Eve's genome.

The good doctor covered that long ago.

Obviously some random things are going to come along at the right time. If they all came along only at the wrong times, then we would have to start wondering if they were really random.

But you can make XX from XY just by doubling the X. Harder to make an XY from XX.What I want to know is if Adam was pregnant with Eve or did she grow like a yeast bud.

It is known by observation as is being discussed in this thread. Another example is brown and black colored pocket mice:Just a moment...We have those exact observations. Of the sequence differences between these alleles, which are you saying could not be produced by the observable mechanisms of mutation?Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Where did you show that this was the ONLY time the mutation occurred?Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

The same thing happened in pocket mice. They also evolved black coloration, and it was a dominant allele. However, the gene is strongly selected against in the normal light beige desert. Only when volcanic eruptions produced black volcanic rock was there a niche for the black mice to be selected for. What we see are islands of black mice in and around old black lava flows, surrounded by a sea of light beige mice.The interesting part is that the black allele is dominant. However, you can't find black mice at any appreciable distance away from the black lava fields, which act as islands for the black allele. They were even able to show that there is free interbreeding between the black mice and the brown mice, but the black allele still doesn't spread far from the black volcanic islands in the light brown desert. Just a moment...What is also interesting is that the black lava flows are relatively recent compared to the much older light beige desert.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

I kept thinking of the pocket mice through this whole discussion too. Same situation.