MSizer
MSizer
She didn't claim that the brain stopped (or can stop) random mutations in cell reproduction. You're putting words in her mouth.
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A practical question about evolution
- Thread starter Big_TJ
- Start date
She didn't claim that the brain stopped (or can stop) random mutations in cell reproduction. You're putting words in her mouth.
Alceste
Vagabond
You missed the point. Once we became clever enough to throw on a pelt to protect us from the elements, it was no longer advantageous to our survival to have fur. So despite the fact that random mutations are happening all the time, natural selection will not favour mutations that result in additional body hair.
Like this one.
Gabethewiking
Active Member
You missed the point. Once we became clever enough to throw on a pelt to protect us from the elements, it was no longer advantageous to our survival to have fur. So despite the fact that random mutations are happening all the time, natural selection will not favour mutations that result in additional body hair.
Like this one.
I think you look at generations of Species (human definition) to be fast. IT does not work like that. It would take generations upon thousands of generations. Humans have lived as we do today for a mere thousand years, a speck less then a pimple on your body in Evolutionary lines.
This is the main issue, Creationist or History deniers do not understand History and Human existence in comparison to other Animals existence. You look at it with limited human eyes and think your 70 years is a "big thing". You need to understand the reality of the world and your insignificant part in it.
Buttons*
Glass half Panda'd
It doesn't, really, because there are still MANY malformations within humanity. Retarded children, learning disabilities, clubbed feet, cleft palates, any variety of genetic disorders shows mutation in the genes. It's just that the majority of the time, we don't "breed" for that, we breed for brain smarts (shown by money, a good job, a nice house, honesty, interesting personality). But that doesn't mean that genetic disorders have all been cut out of the gene pool.
If I'm right, instead of genes investing in the ability to grow more hair, or be faster, or be smaller or bigger has given way in favor of bigger brains. Which means that we'd be getting smarter as a species. (Assuming we don't disregard our gifts.) Perhaps this means we find more ways to be lazy... but we've got the most interesting brains of the natural world. It takes a LOT of energy to run our brains, which would explain why our genes favored that instead of other genetic adaptations.
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Alceste
Vagabond
Um... are you sure you're talking to me? What exactly are you responding to?
Man of Faith
Well-Known Member
You missed the point. Once we became clever enough to throw on a pelt to protect us from the elements, it was no longer advantageous to our survival to have fur. So despite the fact that random mutations are happening all the time, natural selection will not favour mutations that result in additional body hair.
Like this one.
I suspect having more hair than usual is not a random mutation but a gene passed on by ancestors. It would take a random mutation to not have the fur gene any longer. Putting on clothes would not cause a random mutation of loosing the fur gene, by its very nature a random mutation is random.
tumbleweed41
Resident Liberal Hippie
It wouldn't take thousands of years for humans to develop a coat of fur/hair. The information is already present in our DNA and simple mutations would make them predominant in a population within just several generations. There are plenty of examples of this happening. Italian Wall Lizard and Peppered Moth are a couple examples of this.
Anyway, it doesn't happen probably because of a couple reasons. In order for certain mutations to be prominent, there must be a genetic drift between the population inhabiting colder climates and the rest of the world. That means that little to no genetic information from outside these climates can enter the gene pool of the population living within them. But that doesn't happen. Due to our fantastic travel abilities, we ensure genetic flow and prevent any splitting of our species.
Also, as said a million times before, there is no need to develop such a feature since most of these people manage to stay warm just fine. They have coats and in door heating and what not. No sense in wasting biological resources to make thick coats of hair if we can artificially create it.
Anyway, it doesn't happen probably because of a couple reasons. In order for certain mutations to be prominent, there must be a genetic drift between the population inhabiting colder climates and the rest of the world. That means that little to no genetic information from outside these climates can enter the gene pool of the population living within them. But that doesn't happen. Due to our fantastic travel abilities, we ensure genetic flow and prevent any splitting of our species.
Also, as said a million times before, there is no need to develop such a feature since most of these people manage to stay warm just fine. They have coats and in door heating and what not. No sense in wasting biological resources to make thick coats of hair if we can artificially create it.
Alceste
Vagabond
No, evolution is not ONLY "random mutation". Random mutations are occurring all the time, everywhere, but the principle that determines which mutations survive and thrive is called natural selection, and this is a far more significant contributor to change over time.
One form of natural selection is sexual selection: females choose the mate that appears most sexually attractive. In birds, sexual selection has caused males of many species to have glamorous plumage while the females remain plain. Males and females are the same species but plain-looking males over tens of thousands of generations have not been afforded the opportunity to breed.
So, if a thick covering of hair is not REQUIRED for survival (i.e. we wear pelts) then whether or not humans are hairy is determined entirely by sexual selection.
In other primates, the "sexy bits" (to other primates) are often hairless (think of the big red butt of a baboon). It's not unreasonable to speculate that homo sapiens sapiens, like his primate cousins, prefers to "see what he's getting into". Over tens of thousands of generations of pelt-wearing, natural sexual selection will deliver a hairless body regardless of whether any significant hair-related mutations occur.
sonofskeptish
It is what it is
Clothes are a tool. Are you saying tools are a blow to evolution? Is the fact that we are the only animal to drive cars and use computers a blow to evolution too? How about medicine? Technology in general? Are all these things a blow to evolution?
I think they should withhold all these things from creationists to thin the herd and help speed human evolution up a bit.
sonofskeptish
It is what it is
That should take about 5 seconds.
chuck010342
Active Member
could you explain the fact that random mutations rarely ever ever give new genetic information?
tumbleweed41
Resident Liberal Hippie
There is more to evolution than mutation. A small percentage of mutations are beneficial, and selection can cause the beneficial mutations to persist and the harmful mutations to die off. The combination of mutation and selection can create new useful adaptations.
Alceste
Vagabond
What's to explain? Something that is "rare" over the course of four billion years, in hundreds of billions of organisms, can actually be quite common on the whole.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Sure. It's false. Oh wait, I forgot--you're the person who only posts to be a jerk, right?
johnhanks
Well-Known Member
Rarely does not mean never. A chromosomal mutation called duplication results in a section of a chromosome being (guess what) duplicated, so you now have two identical bits of chromosome sitting side by side. One of these bits mutates into something slightly different, and bingo - you've got new genetic information. The fact that you can tell red from green is the result of just this process (unless you're red-green colourblind, of course, in which case one of these adjacent and subtly different genes on your X chromosome has mutated again and gone wrong).
Man of Faith
Well-Known Member
That's because Time is magic.
Half Asleep
Crazy-go-nuts
I don't understand why you think that's an argument.
Small changes, over time, accrue to large changes. Is that really that far-fetched?
Alceste
Vagabond
Madness. Pure madness. MoF and everyone he knows, and every tree and blade of grass in his sphere of existence just poofed into existence, fully mature. No seeds turning into oak trees, no eggs and sperm... there is no change over time in his world because MoF does not believe things change over time.
You claim mutations never add new beneficial genetic information. However it does happen. As far as I know, we haven't seen it occur in animal life but we have seen it countless times in microbial life and I believe in plant life as well.
Anyway, we've only known of evolution for about 150 years and DNA and its role in biology for almost 60 years. On an evolutionary time scale, this isn't even a blink of the eye. This is 1/1,000 of a nanosecond. It takes time for these kinds of mutations to occur and we simply have not been observing long enough to see this yet in life as complex as animals. But that's just the first half of the point.
The second is that life has been evolving for a pretty long time. And we have loads of information stored in our DNA that we are not using. It's all dormant information that we stopped using when it was no longer useful. However if sometime in the future it will become useful again, it's much easier to access that already existing information than it is to mutate an entirely new chromosome to help cope with the new environment. So we won't see much of this going on in plant or animal life. But we may get lucky. We may be able to witness the arrival of new genetic information in an animal organism.
Anyway, we've only known of evolution for about 150 years and DNA and its role in biology for almost 60 years. On an evolutionary time scale, this isn't even a blink of the eye. This is 1/1,000 of a nanosecond. It takes time for these kinds of mutations to occur and we simply have not been observing long enough to see this yet in life as complex as animals. But that's just the first half of the point.
The second is that life has been evolving for a pretty long time. And we have loads of information stored in our DNA that we are not using. It's all dormant information that we stopped using when it was no longer useful. However if sometime in the future it will become useful again, it's much easier to access that already existing information than it is to mutate an entirely new chromosome to help cope with the new environment. So we won't see much of this going on in plant or animal life. But we may get lucky. We may be able to witness the arrival of new genetic information in an animal organism.