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Author Topic:   Mutations
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 16 of 34 (86144)
02-13-2004 4:10 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Rrhain
02-12-2004 11:35 PM


Young students thesis and random ideas
Rrhain writes:
And if I were to take a handful of change and toss it on the ground and then take an identical handful of change and deliberately place each coin in the exact same pattern, by what criteria would you tell the two apart? And if you couldn't, why would a conclusion of them both being the product of "design" be more logical than a conclusion of "random"?
Allow me to tell you what I know of random. One of my pesky sins which shackled me and kept me broke and in bondage was gambling.(No longer, thank God!)Any yahoo knows that the house always wins, right? It seems that the way that I fell in to my sin was because out of 100 visits to the casino in a given time frame, I had won $98,000.00. Never mind that I eventually lost the $98,000.00 and then some, but my point in this confession and my curiousity pointed to how the random number generators worked on the slot machines. Legally, they have to set a percentage of a payout. When I was winning, it seemed as if not only I but many others were winning on about every third visit. The casino later changed the random process. I theorize that on a 90% payout quota, the machine can be set with variables in time and amount and still achieve the 90% ratio. Thus, people can be tricked into compulsive habits! Blast that mafia! _ Sorry if I got a bit off topic,young student. Pray for me not to do anything else stupid in my life and I will pray that God gives you a wise mind to write your paper with.

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Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 17 of 34 (86374)
02-15-2004 2:33 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by Rayne
02-13-2004 1:15 AM


Rayne responds to me:
quote:
This thread had the sole purpose of answering the single question: How much of evoloution is based off mutations?
Incorrect. It started with this question:
Does anyone know how much of evoloution is based off random mutation?
Those are not the same questions.
quote:
Do you not realize that I registered with this site today?
What does that have to do with anything? Are you saying you didn't bother to read the group to get an idea of what the tone of the posts are like, what threads have been discussed, who the people are who tend to hang out here, etc. before posting?
quote:
I could not have the time to go through the site reading what everyone has to say on the multitude of subjects.
Why not? Nobody forced you to post before reading the group for a while. Do you make a habit of jumping into other people's conversations without at first listening to what they're talking about?
quote:
My use of "random" was purely to add to the sentence.
But that words means something. If you didn't mean it, why did you use it?
quote:
But, to answer your question on the definition of "random", it would have to be this: without previous plan or prior concious thought. So no, todays biotechnological mutations would not be considered "random" in this context.
Then to answer your original question: Pretty much all of it. There are other aspects involved in evolution such as genetic drift, recombination, etc., but it's random mutation that is then acted upon by selection that is a major drive.

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

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Itachi Uchiha
Member (Idle past 5615 days)
Posts: 272
From: mayaguez, Puerto RIco
Joined: 06-21-2003


Message 18 of 34 (86444)
02-15-2004 2:54 PM


Question/statements from Skeptic:
Since I have some background in genetics and plant breeding, I can tell you that the entire field of plant breeding is based on 'new information' arising from random mutations. New traits do appear, at the molecular and morphological level new proteins, new pigments, etc. These are novelties.
Two parents with blue eyes will generally produce children with blue eyes, and likewise two plants with white flowers will generally produce new plants with white flowers, but sometimes that seedlings with red or purple flower turns up, not because a recessive allele has been revealed, but because a mutation has altered an existing pigment or biochemical pathway to produce something entirely new, that has never existed before. This is NEW INFORMATION.
As an example, there is nothing like an ear of corn in any other species of grass. It seems to be entirely unique in the plant kingdom. And yet there are three or four species of grass, very similar to corn in their overall growth, but with typical grass-like reproductive organs. The funny thing is, they will breed with corn to produce fully fertile offspring. It is clear that a combination of mutation and selection has produced in corn an unusual and entirely novel structure from a very typical grass in other words, NEW INFORMATION.
Response by Don Batten, Ph.D.:
The question comes from someone who does not understand the concept of information. The appearance of a ‘new trait’ does not have to involve the addition of information via the DNA coding. In fact, as bioinformatics expert Dr. Lee Spetner has demonstrated (in his book, Not by Chance, Judaica Press), such is so unlikely that it could never be the basis for the increased information needed for molecules-to-man evolution. Information content is measured not by the number of traits, but by what is called the specified complexity of a base sequence or protein amino acid sequence. A mutation, being a random change in highly specified information contained in the nucleic acid base sequence, could almost never do anything but scramble the information; that is, reduce the information.
Now sometimes such a loss of information results in a new trait for example, purple or red flowers where there were only blue ones before. This would have to be studied at the DNA base sequence level (or amino acid sequence in the enzyme producing the pigment, or the pigment itself) to show this. For example, a blue pigment could be changed into a red or purple pigment by loss of a side-chain from the basic pigment molecule. Such a change would involve a loss of specified complexity and therefore a loss of information. Even an informationally neutral change could be responsible this is not to be confused with Kimura’s neutral mutation, which has nothing to do with the concept of information, only the effect on survival. Even a change of one amino acid in a protein, not altering information content, can alter energy levels in such a way as to change the visible absorption spectrum, e.g. by reducing the number of consecutive conjugated bonds. And a small change in pH can have a large effect on color (this effect was overlooked by a group of molecular biologists who managed to get the gene for the blue pigment in hydrangeas into a rose the rose was not blue, although the pigment was manufactured, because the cell pH was not the same as a hydrangea’s!).
Of the many hundreds of antibiotic, herbicide and insecticide resistance mechanisms studied at a biochemical level, none involve addition of specified complexity in the DNA. Although some are ‘new traits’ due to mutations, all involve loss of information. An example is the loss of control over the production of an enzyme that happens to break down penicillin in Staphylococcus aureus, resulting in the production of greatly increased amounts of the enzyme and thus conferring resistance to penicillin. Another mode of antibiotic resistance due to mutation is decreased effectiveness of a membrane transport protein so that the antibiotic is no longer taken up by the cell (but the normal function of the transporter is also impaired and the bacterium is less fit to survive in the wild). However, much antibiotic resistance seems to be acquired by the transfer of plasmids from other species of bacteria via conjugation, which of course does not explain the ultimate origin of the information.
What about the corn story? The questioner is probably correct about the species of grass and the origin of corn. I have no problem with that. Creationists would say that the species that interbreed with corn (maize) are of the same created kind. However, until the biochemical/genetic basis of the difference between maize and its wild relatives is determined, it cannot be said that the maize inflorescence is due to new information. Loss of information in some base sequences responsible for early steps in inflorescence development could easily account for such seemingly large differences.
It must be noted (again) that creationists do not say that mutations are always harmful, just that they are almost invariably a loss of information (i.e. specified complexity). Sometimes a loss of information can be beneficial, but it is a loss of information. For example, loss of function of wings in the flightless cormorant in the Galpagos Islands, which can now dive better than its flying cousins, or flightless beetles on a windswept island that are better off because they are less likely to be blown into the sea.
Evolution needs swags of new information, if a microbe really did change into a man over several billion years. The additional new information would take nearly a thousand books of 500 pages each to print the sequence. Random changes cannot account for a page, or even a sentence, of this, let alone accounting for all of it.
Courtesy of AiG Answers in Genesis

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by Trixie, posted 02-15-2004 3:47 PM Itachi Uchiha has replied
 Message 20 by NosyNed, posted 02-15-2004 4:10 PM Itachi Uchiha has not replied

  
Trixie
Member (Idle past 3706 days)
Posts: 1011
From: Edinburgh
Joined: 01-03-2004


Message 19 of 34 (86456)
02-15-2004 3:47 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Itachi Uchiha
02-15-2004 2:54 PM


Jazzlover, you might want to actually check the accuracy of the statements you've pasted above. I'm only going to deal with the Staphylococcus aureus beta-lactamase part. I suggest you check out this link
The Faculty of Medicine
It gives you further information on beta-lactamases, what they do, how many are known and the fact that they are thought to have evolved from cell wall-building proteins in bacteria called penicillin-binding proteins. It will also direct you to other sources so that you can find out alot more about them.
You state, or your source does;
An example is the loss of control over the production of an enzyme that happens to break down penicillin in Staphylococcus aureus, resulting in the production of greatly increased amounts of the enzyme and thus conferring resistance to penicillin
In actual fact I think you'll find that beta-lactamase is produced in addition to any protein it may have evolved from such as penicillin-binding proteins. Additionally, in some bacteria the prodution of beta-lactamase is constitutive i.e., switched on all the time and in others its inducible i.e., it only switches on production when penicillins are present. For a gene to be inducible it not only has to have the protein-coding region,it also has to have a promoter, upstream of the start site of the coding region, which then allows transcription to start. The promoter has to be tied in some way to the conditions under which production of the enzyme is required. So somehow the message that the outside of the bacterium has encountered penicillin has to be transmitted to the inside so that the promoter can be activated. How on Earth can a system which involves this sort of message pickup, message transfer and action on message be described as a loss of control? That is simplistic at best and downright misleading at worst.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by Itachi Uchiha, posted 02-15-2004 2:54 PM Itachi Uchiha has replied

Replies to this message:
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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 20 of 34 (86463)
02-15-2004 4:10 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Itachi Uchiha
02-15-2004 2:54 PM


Your site talks of "specified complexity".
How about going to this topic and filling us in on what it is?
Complex Specified Information (CSI)

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Itachi Uchiha
Member (Idle past 5615 days)
Posts: 272
From: mayaguez, Puerto RIco
Joined: 06-21-2003


Message 21 of 34 (86531)
02-15-2004 10:08 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by Trixie
02-15-2004 3:47 PM


Trixie writes:
How on Earth can a system which involves this sort of message pickup, message transfer and action on message be described as a loss of control?
But where's the new information?

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 22 of 34 (86543)
02-15-2004 11:50 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Itachi Uchiha
02-15-2004 10:08 PM


First you need to say what you mean when you talk about "information".

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Replies to this message:
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Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 23 of 34 (86629)
02-16-2004 9:05 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by NosyNed
02-15-2004 11:50 PM


Lets redefine the original question
Hold up, everyone! What is the point that we all are trying to collectively clarify?

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 Message 22 by NosyNed, posted 02-15-2004 11:50 PM NosyNed has replied

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Trixie
Member (Idle past 3706 days)
Posts: 1011
From: Edinburgh
Joined: 01-03-2004


Message 24 of 34 (86708)
02-16-2004 3:36 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Itachi Uchiha
02-15-2004 10:08 PM


The new information that the cell didn't have before is how to make beta-lactamase!! Also how to detect the presence of beta-lacam antibiotics!!! Also how to control the expression of the beta-lactamase so that it doesn't get produced needlessly when no beta-lactams are around!!! It didn't possess ANY of this information when it was sensitive to the antibiotic. All of this information is coded in the DNA. That information breaks down to the order in which four chemicals appear - A, C, G and T. The whole of the genetic code is written using just these four chemicals in bacteria, frogs, mice, fish, plants (exceptions are certain viruses which use RNA and even then the only difference is that T is replaced by U, but U means the same thing as T). That's it, that's all the information is!!! It's easy for bacteria to pick up DNA from other bacteria, hell, I use this every day in my work. It's also easy to mutate the DNA changing a few of the letters around. After they're changed around they say something totally different from what they said originally - I think that counts as novel information.

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 25 of 34 (86724)
02-16-2004 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Phat
02-16-2004 9:05 AM


Re: Lets redefine the original question
Hold up, everyone! What is the point that we all are trying to collectively clarify?
Darned if I know.
It started asking about what the place of mutations were. Where are we now?

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 26 of 34 (87060)
02-17-2004 3:19 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Rayne
02-12-2004 11:10 PM


As Weinberg in commenting on Wolfram ADMITTED that physicists care less than more for the kinds of squiggly tracks that highlight Feynman lectures and Wolfram did not spell out his own understood difference of field theory and mechanics quantum wise it seems specious to me to inquire how SHAPE changes can be classed into random divisions. How are proximate causes due to photons to be accounted? What if only a change in a degree C mattered?? One has to have an accepted basis of "change". If one intends on imagining differences in genotype and phenotype "randomly" then I see no way sort of definitive knoweldge how to even postulate unambiguously such.

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DNAunion
Inactive Member


Message 27 of 34 (91071)
03-08-2004 1:18 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by Sylas
02-13-2004 12:04 AM


quote:
So in a sense, all evolution is based on mutation; since this is the underlying source of variety.
I'll have to disagree (unless I've overlooked some subtle semantic meaning). For example, the "most cited" example of evolution involves mottled moths: at one point in time most of the moths were mottled, at another point in time they weren't. This evolution (changes in allelic frequencies in a population) didn't involve any new mutations, but rather simply changes in selection based on differing fitnesses of preexisting phenotypes/genotypes under different environmental conditions.
[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 03-08-2004]
[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 03-08-2004]

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Replies to this message:
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DNAunion
Inactive Member


Message 28 of 34 (91072)
03-08-2004 1:24 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by Sylas
02-13-2004 12:41 AM


quote:
Here's a new question: What percentage of mutations get passed to the offspring, and how many of these are mutations of acctual genes (not the codons that are not specific genetic codes)?
quote:
All mutations in the germ line get passed to offspring; and no others. That is, mutations which occur in sperm, or eggs, or in cells from which sperm or eggs are produced, will be passed on. No others.
I am going to have to disagree with that too. It states that ALL mutations in germ line cells get passed to offspring...what about sperm that never fertilize an egg, or an egg that never gets fertilized, or a zygote/embryo that is spontaneously aborted?

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DNAunion
Inactive Member


Message 29 of 34 (91073)
03-08-2004 1:29 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Sylas
02-13-2004 2:14 AM


quote:
What is passed on to you from your parents is a mix of their genomes. You get something like 3 billion base pairs from each parent, and this makes up your own diploid genome of something like 6 billion base pairs.
I don't believe that is correct. I believe a human's somatic cell contains approximately 3 billion base pairs. If so, then you would get half (= 1.5 billion base pairs) from your mother and half (= 1.5 billion base pairs) from your father.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 30 of 34 (91074)
03-08-2004 1:37 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by DNAunion
03-08-2004 1:18 AM


This evolution (changes in allelic frequencies in a population) didn't involve any new mutations, but rather simply changes in selection based on differing fitnesses of preexisting phenotypes/genotypes under different environmental conditions.
But where did the different genotypes come from? Mutations, presumably, right?
In that case how is it inaccurate to say that mutation was the underlying source of variety?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by DNAunion, posted 03-08-2004 1:18 AM DNAunion has replied

Replies to this message:
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