Where is the evidence for evolution?

Using the current view of information wrt genetics if you
knock out a redundant gene you lose information.Redundant in the PB sense is simply a statement if that
gene's contribution to viability, not to fitness to a
particular habitat. Knock out the gene without killing
the creature and it has lost some of it's adaptability
to changing/new environments.I've suggested before that redundancy does not even indicate
design, let alone proove it.For ToE to work we would require in the genome genes which
can be modified, deleted, or duplicated without producing
non-viable offspring. That this is found in nature is
good for ToE.I'm still (after reading many PB-posts) unclear as to the
nature of the mutation rate argument (perhaps I'm just being
dense).

quote:

---

Lets look at this another way.
Perhaps you will answer these questions:
1. how often do mutations occur?
2. what is the most common result due to mutations?
3. how many beneficial mutations can you describe?

---

1. On average every one has four new genetic differences from
their parents
http://abcnews.go.com/...ience/DailyNews/mutation990127.html2.It is suggested that most mutations are detrimental. However, one
should remember that any that are fatal are immediately taken out
of the equation, that (in sexually reproducing organisms at least)
it is likely that many 'bad' mutations will cause non- or dis-functional gametes.
Where we are not talking about 'viability' the question of
benefit is related to the environment. Is sickle cell genetically
bad or good? Running fast might be good for evading prey or bad
for avoiding chasms.3.Beneficial with respect to what?

My point exactly.Just on a pedantic note (though relevent to consideration of
environment) if memory serves most medieval european skulls have
quite excellent teeth ... probably because there was little sugar to rot them.Pedantry apart though benefit or not is a relationship to
environment not a fundamental feature of a mutation (or at
least to a viable mutation).

The example was just trying to illustrate that a change
in a trait is not, of itself, beneficial or otherwise.It all depends on the context/environment that that change
finds itself in.

What exactly do YOU mean when you say 'evolved'?

I thought you probably did ... but there are some
posters here who really need things spelling out so that
they don't run off at odd tangents

Your example does not elaborate what you view information
to be. On the contrary it obscures it.If the letter had said ::'Please buy my daughter a cat.'and was mis-typed as:'Please buy my daughter a bat.'I think there is a very clear difference in the information
content ... don't you?

I think the point being made about the limitations of the
language analogy is valid.In a written text, the accidental repetition of a word
or even full sentence produces a redundancy. The reader
may pause a moment, but the copy adds nothing to the
text.If you add an extra pigment gene to a flower to enhance
the colour, you end up with white (colourless) flowers.The reason for this (in violets if I remember correctly) has
been put down to something called RNA interference. This is
a kind of primitive 'immune' response in which the 'error'
is masked out. In the case above this also prevents the original pigment gene product to be masked out.The copying of one gene produced a very marked change in
the phenotype.I guess you could add it to your analogy as a destructive grammar
checker, where any grammatical errors are deleted from the text
(so both copies of the repetion are not expressed in print)

That's not entirely correct. Genetic experiments have shown
that artificailly duplicating a gene can have phenotypic
repurcussions.It is only once a gene is observable to the environment (if you
see what I mean) that selection is an issue.

You said ::'You immediately have redundancy and the duplication soon
decays.'Which was the part I was objecting to. But since you agree
that duplication can have phenotypic consequences (so it isn't
a redundancy) then I guess I must have mis-understood your intent
there.

What about the comment as to redundancy?On the one hand you say it's redundant, but also say
that it can introduce phenotypic change ... a clarification
is in order I feel.