You seem to have the misconception that evolution MUST work by one mechanism or another. While it is true that genetic recombination (which is considered mutation, by the way) and evolving gene regulation (which also occurs by mutation) are important sources of adaptation, this does not preclude the contribution of more standard forms of mutation. Sorry, quoting your own paper in a discontinued journal really doesn’t add to the credibility of your argument. Again, although mutations frequently have a negative impact, some do take evolution in positive directions. Check out this link for an article listing examples.
When your personal beliefs force you to ignore credible science in favor of erroneous and unsupported claims, then they really are important.
Thank you very much, I like to agree! There are all sorts of Young Earth Creationists (the term I should have used previously) that would shudder to think my views would qualify as “Creationist”. If you label me as “inconsistent” because I use both faith and scientific reasoning to formulate my opinions, then I can accept that. I believe it is reasonable to accept limits to naturalistic materialism and consider that complete truth goes beyond our ability to observe and detect. To be honest, I think it would be fair to state that I take science much more seriously than you do.
Since adaptive immunity doesn’t fit your narrative, it is no longer relevant? Let’s travel back in time about 100 posts…[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:185, topic:35830”]
Would you say you have a built in mechanism or “evolve” when developing immunity to a certain pathogen? Not everything that appears “new” is indeed new.
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The B and T cell issue was raised in response to your own question. [quote=“NonlinOrg, post:289, topic:35830”]
Ok. Now do you really think @T_aquaticus was referring to 1 single liter of E.coli solution?
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I don’t, but that wasn’t my point. My point was a suggestion that if you don’t understand someone’s scientific claim, it would be a good idea to investigate it rather than immediately scoff at it - especially if that someone happens to be a professional.
William, you aren’t accomplishing anything when you twist the facts so boldly.
Let’s just look at your one sentence that I quote above:
A. “Irreparable mutations are the cause of cancer and hereditary diseases, which cause severe selective disadvantage.”
[But not all irreparable mutations cause these things. You serve no purpose by attempting to make all irreparable mutations only the cause of bad things.
“They cannot be the motor for improvement, expansion and innovation of the DNA, according Darwin:”
B. How could Darwin have said all these things when he didn’t know anything about mutations, reparable or irreparable?
C. Further, who cares what you think Darwin thought prior to the discovery of DNA? Aren’t you being overly obtuse on this matter? Nobody here defends mutations with Darwin’s views when they have the facts of micro-biology and genetics at hand!
Finally…
“… selective disadvantage will erase these irreparable mutations within a few generations.”
D. Demonstrably incorrect, William. Sickle cell blood has persisted for generations… because it is advantageous to the population (though perhaps not for the individual) when the population is subjected to malaria.
Perhaps you would have more fun disagreeing with YEC theories on a YEC forum… you can show your heart is in the right place by saying how wrong the evolutionists are, and then proceed to showing how wrong the YECs are too!
I am very glad you provided this little analogy for illustration, because what it is illustrating is that the things I have seen many people tell you repeatedly are still not making sense to you. Perhaps if we fix your analogy it will help.
Point 1: Some mutations are harmful. Most mutations are neutral. A few mutations are increase success.
In most cases, the car’s running will not be improved by the process you describe. It is remotely possible it could be but if it was my car I would not bet on it.
Point 2: Heritability over generations is how the ratio of success-increasing mutations increases in the population from very few to widespread, even building on the previous generation’s success.
In order to see anything useful, we would need to be working with a whole fleet of cars, so let’s shift the setting to a car designer/manufacturer.
Let’s also, for the sake of simplicity, narrow our focus down to one little part of a car: the spoiler. What is the ideal shape for airflow when a car is going fast?
It turns out this is very difficult to mathematically generate, and in a lot of ways it’s easier just to build a bunch of test versions and put them in a wind tunnel. As you go, you can refine your ideas of what makes a good spoiler shape by removing the ones that clearly aren’t as good from the pool and doing smaller variations from the better performers. These variations aren’t random but they could be; even totally random options, put through a process like this, will eventually give you a better spoiler shape than if somebody sat down for a year with a fluid dynamics textbook and tried to design one in their head.
There is probably a subset of guys that somehow think a spoiler on their car would enhance reproductive potential, but perhaps that is is a different subject…
Great analogy however, and actually makes sense as a model. If a particular design is successful, you would start seeing increased numbers of modified spoilers in the car population. ( works better in a racing model where you have competition and selection than in the common population where spoilers are just decorative)
Lenski demonstrated that the mutation only happened once in one generation, and this is after 20,000+ generations comprised of billions of bacteria per generation. You do the math.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:284, topic:35830”]
Your reply denotes complete lack of understanding of the problem posed. Try again.
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Then how do you explain the physical differences between humans and chimps? The overwhelming scientific consensus is that those physical differences are due to DNA sequence differences between the two genomes, and those differences include indels and substitutions. How do you explain it?[quote=“WilliamDJ, post:291, topic:35830”]
Irreparable mutations are the cause of cancer and hereditary diseases, which cause severe selective disadvantage. They cannot be the motor for improvement, expansion and innovation of the DNA, according Darwin: selective disadvantage will erase these irreparable mutations within a few generations.
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Where is the evidence for these assertions?
Also, every person is born with about 50-75 mutations. How is it that we don’t all immediately die from these mutations?
Evolution is adaptability.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:289, topic:35830”]
Ok. Now do you really think @T_aquaticus was referring to 1 single liter of E.coli solution?
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I am referring to the Lenski experiment. You can read over the protocol here:
They grow 10 ml of culture each day, and take 0.1 ml of the previous days culture to start the next days culture, which is a 1% inoculum. The usual concentration of E. coli in culture is about 1E9 (1 x. 10^9), so 10 ml will have 1E10 which is 10 billion bacteria. So each day they produce 10 billion bacteria per 10 ml culture, and they had 12 parallel cultures. This means that each day they were producing 120E10 or 120 billion bacteria. They repeated this process for years, starting a new culture each day. It only takes 10 days until you hit 1E12, which is 1 trillion.
So what do you think happened in this experiment. From what I have read of your posts so far you are saying that citrate metabolism appeared immediate in all bacteria because they all had the ability to adapt to the presence of citrate. Is this the case?
You misunderstand a lot. There’s no way to innovate with the hocus-pocus of “evolution”. Regardless of the starting and ending point. Try it for yourself. Abiogenesis attempts have failed miserably and so have all “evolution” computer simulations. Because there is no “hocus-pocus” “emerging” creativity whatsoever.
Are you referring to simulations of biological evolution, or evolutionary algorithms used for industrial/business purposes? As a software development professional, I happen to know something about this subject.
Please respect the empirical fact that a dysfunctioning mutation repair system is a selective disadvantage. Please read the health care literature.
Please respect Darwin’s principle that a population with dysfunctioning mutation repair will lose the struggle for survival from a population with well functioning mutation repair. Please respect Darwin.
Please acknowledge that no one will put his/her genitals under an X-ray machine to bless his/her offspring with improved DNA. Please accept that (according to the playing rules of empirical science), this empirical fact disproves the theory that the accumulation of irreparable, inheritable mutations can improve the DNA.
Please accept that mutations cannot produce mutation repair systems. Such a thing is only possible in the Fantasy World created by Evolutionary Fundamentalists.
Your statement is incorrect. Under adverse conditions – when an organism is not well fitted to its environment – those members of the population with a higher mutation rate can be at a selective advantage. This can be seen in the success of mutator strains of bacteria under stress conditions.
Your statement is also irrelevant. It is an empirical fact that mutations occur, and it is an empirical fact that some of them are beneficial to the organism.
Please respect these empirical facts.
Please acknowledge that you have once again misunderstood evolution in grand fashion. Mutations can be (and are) ultimately good for a population while being individually bad for most of the mutated individuals. Your failure to understand this makes your argument completely irrelevant to actual evolutionary biology.
What hocus-pocus are you talking about? We can observe mutations happening. We can observe natural selection occurring. We can observe genetic divergence between isolated populations. We can observe that the differences between the genomes of divergent species are consistent with all of these mechanisms. How is this hocus-pocus?
Why should we respect a bare assertion that has no evidence to back it?[quote=“WilliamDJ, post:306, topic:35830”]
Please respect Darwin’s principle that a population with dysfunctioning mutation repair will lose the struggle for survival from a population with well functioning mutation repair.
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