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Author Topic:   The origin of new genes
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 9 of 164 (351325)
09-22-2006 1:34 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Faith
09-22-2006 1:16 PM


Oh I have not ignored this at all. It is part of my argument that mutations can't do what the ToE requires them to do. I don't know that "billions" of mutations have been "shown" to exist in the human gene pool, since claims about mutations are often asserted but rarely actually demonstrated, but perhaps there are that many; I know there are a lot. However, most of them wipe out useful alleles apparently, since they have no function, or bring about disease, and some minuscule number can said VERY IFFILY to confer a benefit, usually in exchange for a downside. Not the sort of mechanism that could power evolution.
There should have been some reasoning between the penultimate and final sentence.
---
One nice example of a beneficial mutation in mammals is the origin of "three-color vision" in Old World primates, which involved duplication of a gene followed by mutation of one of the copies. Hence, whereas most mammals see only in "two-color" vision, with "red" and "blue" receptors, we and our cousins also have a "green" receptor which is almost, but not quite, identical to the "red" one.
Interestingly, reptiles see in seven colors (imagine how expensive a TV would be if you were a lizard). But the primitive mammal-like reptiles, you wil recall, were nocturnal, and developed rods at the expense of cones.
For our diurnal fruit-eating ancestors, however, the ability to tell red from green is clearly an adaptive trait.
Here's a paper on the genetics of vision in primates.
Nathans, J. The Evolution and Physiology of Human Color Vision, Neuron, Vol. 24, 299-312, October, 1999

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 Message 8 by Faith, posted 09-22-2006 1:16 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 16 of 164 (351466)
09-22-2006 7:35 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Faith
09-22-2006 3:31 PM


Thank you for describing as "speculative thinking" a paper you can't be bothered to read.
How do I know a mutation was involved? Because this form of three-color vision is confined within a group of animals known to be a clade. How do I know this, I hear you ask? By comparing the predictions of this theory to the data in morphology, genetics, and the fossil record, of course.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 18 of 164 (351488)
09-22-2006 9:33 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by Philip
09-22-2006 9:26 PM


Re: New Genes?
Can you explain what you're trying to say and on what grounds you're saying it?
Thanks.

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 Message 17 by Philip, posted 09-22-2006 9:26 PM Philip has replied

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 26 of 164 (351547)
09-23-2006 7:20 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by Faith
09-23-2006 12:19 AM


Reciting this does not make it true.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Faith, posted 09-23-2006 12:19 AM Faith has replied

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 Message 35 by Faith, posted 09-23-2006 10:30 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 37 of 164 (351698)
09-23-2006 10:45 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Faith
09-23-2006 10:30 PM


Recitation doesn't make anything true, but thinking it through ought to show that this really is just circumstantial speculative reasoning with no actual facts involved:
Merely reciting this will not make it true.
Where is the bit where you "think it through"?
Because this form occurs within a certain group is not evidence for your claim. You are assuming descent from one to another.
No. Do not tell me falsehoods about what I think, as this is neither polite, accurate, nor moral.
, but this is not proved, merely assumed.
No, don't be silly.
Similarity of design accounts just as well for the facts. Morphology and genetics and the fossil record are equally well accounted for by this other explanation.
No: which is why you cannot account for them in this way.
You are arguing from theory through association and comparison. There is no actual proof here. Mere analogizing.
No. Do not tell me falsehoods about how I am arguing, as this is neither polite, accurate, nor moral.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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 Message 35 by Faith, posted 09-23-2006 10:30 PM Faith has replied

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 Message 39 by Faith, posted 09-23-2006 11:04 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 38 of 164 (351701)
09-23-2006 10:57 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Faith
09-23-2006 10:44 PM


And this one example, or maybe there are two or three by now,
"Or maybe there are two or three right now"?
Sheesh.
that is brought out as supposedly typical of mutation...
No it isn't.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 40 of 164 (351708)
09-23-2006 11:24 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by Faith
09-23-2006 11:04 PM


Seems to me what I said is a fair representation of the implications of what you said but if I'm wrong you need to show how ...
Wow, you're asking me to substantiate my statements about what my opinions are.
I mean ... what? Sheesh.
(1) I said nothing of the sort. Where did I say that my statements were "not proved, merely assumed"? I didn't. Did I say that my statements were "mere analogizing"? No, I did not.
(2) I have explicitly told you that these are not my opinions.
This is how you know that the opinions which you have attributed to me are not mine.
Could anything be clearer?
, not just keep saying it over and over. As you yourself said, merely reciting something doesn't make it true?
What have I repeated? Ah yes, my advice to you not to tell me falsehoods about my opinions.
Let me repeat that sentiment once more.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 44 of 164 (352392)
09-26-2006 12:35 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by Maxwell's Demon
09-25-2006 3:52 PM


It would be difficult to put an exact figure on the improbability; however, if mick can tell us the range of lengths of the nucleotides involved, it should be possible to figure out a conservative estimate for improbability: i.e. to say "it is at least n to 1 against this occuring by chance."
However, I think the empirical approach of the researchers is OK. You say that they used only one set --- yes, but it had 23000 members, and so over two hundred million opportunities for a match by chance. They found none. In fact, using more sets would not be the way to go if you wanted more data: it would be more efficient to use a set with more members.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 48 of 164 (352475)
09-26-2006 8:55 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by Faith
09-23-2006 10:23 PM


Variations are merely CALLED mutations without any evidence whatever that they are in fact mutations. Whatever it would take to prove that they are truly novel, never existing before in the population, is what is needed.
Very well. We prove it thus. Only two of each kind of unclean beast was taken onto the ark, one male, one female. mtDNA is passed down through the female line. Therefore, any variation of the mtDNA in an unclean baramin is evidence of a novel mutation. Such variation exists. QED.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 49 of 164 (352486)
09-26-2006 9:26 PM
Reply to: Message 45 by Maxwell's Demon
09-26-2006 3:20 PM


Yeah well... see... the reason I'd want some sort of quantification, is creos could easily just claim that god sometimes likes to reuse his gene-designs with small modifications...
But by the nature of a frame shift, the protein coded for is completely different (apart from the length of the protein chain). The nearest analogy I can think of is if a human designer wrote a set of instructions for putting up a tent which, read backwards, were instructions for assembling a food blender; constraining the design of both items according to this requirement.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 52 of 164 (352590)
09-27-2006 8:12 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Brad McFall
09-27-2006 7:22 AM


Re: New Genes?
Do you know the meaning of the term "word salad"?

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 64 of 164 (352992)
09-28-2006 9:14 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by Faith
09-28-2006 4:35 PM


It isn't MUCH more, and even if it were fifty that is a paltry number for the job asked of it,
We've had hundreds in just a few referenced papers.
Let's have some more.
and the kinds of mutations you are talking about are mostly just weird,
In what way weird?
not the kind of stuff that could put together such marvelous unities as life exhibits.
... such as color vision.
Oh, wait ... ?
And you'll just love Hox genes
Yeah, I know the probabilities and they are simply astronomically unconvincing. I really don't know how they convince you.
I don't know what you mean. Which probabilities are astronomically unconvincing?
Edited by AdminJar, : fix link

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 69 of 164 (353206)
09-29-2006 4:39 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by jar
09-29-2006 2:12 PM


I specified unclean beasts, didn't I?

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 72 of 164 (358064)
10-22-2006 4:55 AM
Reply to: Message 71 by Philip
10-21-2006 6:28 PM


Re: Fallacious Misnomers of Benefical Mutation?
Beneficial (advantageous) mutations don't ever occur (unless one unscrupulously perverts the defintion of mutation into mere "change"...
Like the unscrupulous compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary: "[b]mutation[/i] noun : The changing of the structure of a gene."
And the unscrupulous writers of my biology textbook: "mutation: a rare change in the DNA of a gene."
Damn, everyone's in on the plot, aren't they?
Either that, or lexicographers and biologists know the meaning of the word "mutation" and you are ignorant of it. That would certainly explain why the rest of your blather bears no relation to the text you are attempting to criticize.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 83 of 164 (359334)
10-27-2006 1:55 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by Philip
10-24-2006 6:16 PM


Re: Fallacious Misnomers of Benefical Mutation?
Ouch! "the changing of the structure" vs. "a rare change". Your contrary lexicon and biology dafinitions seem ridiculous. So which definition are you supporting anyway, as validating the origin of new genes.
If a dictionary says that an osprey is a bird, and a biology textbook says that it is a rare bird, are they "contrary"?
No, they are entirely consistent.
Is that the best you can do?
Listen carefully. You do not get to redefine the English language. "Mutation" is a term of art in biology. It means what biologists say it means. If you wish to talk about something other than mutations, you must find another word for that thing.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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 Message 74 by Philip, posted 10-24-2006 6:16 PM Philip has replied

Replies to this message:
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