evolution question

[Matt10:34]

Matt, are you quoting a website? If so, please provide a link to it.

www.answersingenesis.com

 

[scitsofreaky]

www.answersingenesis.com

Oh, well now I see why you weren't forthcoming, and I can't blame you

 

[Fatmop]

www.answersingenesis.com

hmm... Ever hear of this one?

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

I'm willing to bet $100 that any talking point you find on AIG can be thoroughly refuted there. Check it out sometime!

 

[Quiddity]

Fatmop, your haughtiness and confidence will win you nothing.

 

[Fatmop]

I see. Tell me, Victor, what would win me something in the face of an AIG quoter? What could I tell Matt that would change his mind, or at least get him to be a little more thoughtful?

 

[Songofmorning]

Hi atheist AJ! I just wanted to answer your question the way I see things. I'm not sure if you have ever taken a course on Genetics or anthropology but I'm sorry to tell you that there are no different "races" of human beings. We are all the same
race just with different skin tones. A different race is defined as impossiblity for the mating between two different species to produce viable offspring. In other words, if humans with different skin colors were different "races" or "species" then they would not be able to produce children when they mated with one another. As we all know that is not the case because I am a product of two parents with different skin colors. Also I believe that when Adam and Eve were created, God created them with the ability to produce all different types of skin colors.

Just to give a quick crash course in Genetics. Your features are determined by your genes or DNA. DNA is packaged into structures called chromosomes and all humans without genetic defects have 46. You inherit 23 chromosomes from your mother and 23 from your dad. Each gene on a chromosome has 2 different forms called alleles. You inherit one allele from each parent. Say, for example, that you have blue eyes. This would mean that you inherited one blue-eyed allele from your mother and one from your dad. Since humans have 2 alleles for each gene and myriads of different genes (24-30 thousand) there are endless possibilities for different skin colors and facial features. Hope I didn't bore you and I hope this helps. By the way, I don't believe that different "races" of humans evolved at all. In fact, I don't even believe in evolution and I have a strong scientific background.

 

[JerryL]

A different race is defined as impossiblity for the mating between two different species to produce viable offspring.

You are equivocating:
1 : a breeding stock of animals
2 a : a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock b : a class or kind of people unified by community of interests, habits, or characteristics <the English race>
3 a : an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species; also : a taxonomic category (as a subspecies) representing such a group b : [size=-1]BREED[/size] c : a division of mankind possessing traits that are transmissible by descent and sufficient to characterize it as a distinct human type

BTW, even between species the possability of fertile offspring exists. Not all mules are inertile.

Also I believe that when Adam and Eve were created, God created them with the ability to produce all different types of skin colors.

Explain that genetically.

there are endless possibilities for different skin colors and facial features.

No. There are lots of possabilities for combinations. If we have Adam and eve with no mutations we only have 4 (max) possabilities for any given alliel.

We also don't have seedless grapes, American Goatsbeard, or any of hundreds of other species we've actually watched evolve.

 

[Songofmorning]

Hi JerryL. I hope to answer some of your questions. I don't know if you have a strong scientific background so I apologize if I'm saying things that you already know. First of all, there are many gene combinations that make skin color. I used the eye color example because it is easy to understand but it is a well known fact that eye color inheritance is either dominant or recessive (one or the other). Skin color inheritance is not dominant or recessive it is in fact polygenic or in other words many genes (at least more than 2)help to influence a particular person's skin tone. If Adam had 2 different alleles of many different genes for skin color and Eve had two opposite alleles for many different genes for skin color the combinations of their alleles along with polygenic inheritance could more than account for all of the worlds diverse skin colors.

Concerning "seedless" grapes and other fruits: Most seedless fruits are actually bred that way. Seedlessness results from conditions like triploidy which mean 3 sets of chromosomes. For example, humans are diploid species. We have two sets of chromosomes: 1 set of 23 chromosomes from our dad and 1 set of 23 chromosomes from our mom. Triploidy in humans is lethal but in plants it just results in sterility or what we call seedlessness.

Now on to seedless grapes: Most seedless grapes are stenospermocarpic, which means the seeds start to develop after normal pollination and fertilization but abort before maturity. They aren't evoloutionary quarks after all. In fact all of your examples either involve mutation of selctive breeding for desired traits.

What many people don't understand is that evolution states that mutations lead to an increase in genetic information. This is not the case. Mutations, at best, lead to a rearrangement of genetic information and at worst lead to a loss of genetic information.

Consider the reproduction of a bacterium cell. It splits itself in two but it doesn't become multicelled. If an organism is single celled that is the way that it will remain until it dies.

Also I think that many evolutionists think that creationists don't believe in adaptation. This is not true. Adaptation is adjusting to one's surroundings not evolution (more genetic information through mutation). I hope that I answered your questions and sorry for the long post.

 

[Ceridwen018]

What many people don't understand is that evolution states that mutations lead to an increase in genetic information. This is not the case. Mutations, at best, lead to a rearrangement of genetic information and at worst lead to a loss of genetic information.

Evolution does not state that mutations lead to an increase in genetic information--people who do not understand evolution and genetics state this.

Given the muti-faceted nature of our proteins, however, genetic mutations can allow a protein to exercise a function it was not previously supposed to do, or to cease a function it usually takes care of, (which could just as easily be harmful as beneficial. If fact, things like this are more often harmful, but not always.) Lactose tolerance, for example, is a genetic mutation. As well as the mutation of the gene that produces CCR5 receptors in cells--the mutation causes its bearer to be HIV/AIDS resistant.

So, although mutations do not actually add letters to our DNA sequence, they can change those letters, and thereby alter the function of the protein created from the sequence, or even possibly create a new protein altogether.

 

[Songofmorning]

If evolution does not state that there is an increase in genetic information how do evolutionists justify the changing of a single celled organism to a multicelled organism which many if not all evolutionists claim. Surely an amoeba couldn't have and does not have all of the DNA that a human being possesses.

Also the CCR5 receptor is thought to have come about because of the Black Plague that occured in Europe in the 1300s. Many researchers believe that this disease somehow affected the genes of the survivors of the Black Plague and that the affected genes gave immunity from HIV/AIDS to certain people groups. This explains why 10-15% of white people have this receptor. A disease affecting a gene is certainly not chance.

It is true that mutations can change proteins but these mutations are very rearly beneficial if ever. Consider prions, for example. Prions are nothing but proteins that are folded differently than normal proteins and prions have devastating consequences if they enter the human body (like Creutzfeld-Jakob disease) or even prions ingested from infected beef (Mad Cow disease). Therefore it is highly unlikely that an amino acid change in a protein would be beneficial if even the wrong folding of a protein causes such dire effects.

Also consider sickle cell disease and anemia. I don't know your scientific background so I apologize if you already know this but hemoglobin is a protein in the blood that stabilizes iron using a heme group to transport oxygen. Hemoglobin has 4 subunits or 4 proteins that associate with one another in quaternary structure (2 alpha subunits and 2 beta subunits).

Sicle cell disease and anemia result in the changing of 1 amino acid glutamic acid (in the normal beta chain of hemoglobin) to valine in sickle cell beta chain of hemoglobin. Each alpha chain of hemoglobin has 141 amino acids and each beta chain has 146. If the consequences resulting from the change of 1 amino acid is this dire, how would the human body be able to withstand the complete changing of one protein to another?

The human body has rigid safe guard mechanisms that keep mutations at bay because mutations are rarely beneficial if ever and often if not always undesirable.

Sorry for the long post. I just tried to make things a little more clear.

 

[JerryL]

First of all, there are many gene combinations that make skin color. I used the eye color example because it is easy to understand but it is a well known fact that eye color inheritance is either dominant or recessive (one or the other).

"Well known" or not, it's inaccurate. A trait is recessive or dominant only in relation to another trait. But eye color is a fine example: There are more than four eye colors found in people.

[qoute]Skin color inheritance is not dominant or recessive it is in fact polygenic or in other words many genes (at least more than 2)help to influence a particular person's skin tone. If Adam had 2 different alleles of many different genes for skin color and Eve had two opposite alleles for many different genes for skin color the combinations of their alleles along with polygenic inheritance could more than account for all of the worlds diverse skin colors. [/quote] Let's get back to the underlying issue... the existance of more than 4 alliels in the human population.

What many people don't understand is that evolution states that mutations lead to an increase in genetic information. This is not the case. Mutations, at best, lead to a rearrangement of genetic information and at worst lead to a loss of genetic information.

What is "information"? Are you asserting that mutations cannot result in longer DNA strands? Frame shift mutations and Insertion mutations both add to the length of the strand.

Consider the reproduction of a bacterium cell. It splits itself in two but it doesn't become multicelled. If an organism is single celled that is the way that it will remain until it dies.

You mean like a human egg is single celled and stays that way forever? Oh wait.

Your example doesn't even qualify as an example. For a single-celled organism to become multi-celled would require a signifigant shift in its morphology. while it's possible for this to occur, in history we can only confirm that it has happened once; and that seems to have taken billions of years.

A seeded grape will never become seedless. It will remain seeded until it dies. Therefore there are no seedless grapes...

Also I think that many evolutionists think that creationists don't believe in adaptation. This is not true. Adaptation is adjusting to one's surroundings not evolution (more genetic information through mutation).

Adaption isn't genetic and isn't inhereted. Me growing callouses because I've been working with my hands is adaption.

 

[painted wolf]

intresting note on human skin tone and evolution... There are five genes known to infulence human skin tone.

Native Americans lost some of the genes that normally generates dark skin... it was likely weeded out when our ancestors lived for so long in the farther northern areas of Asia/America.

Where knowledge has improved over the past century has been in precisely how many genes are involved and their specific loci. As of 1998, five human pigmentation genes had been identified. Their symbols and genome loci are: “TYR” at 11q14-21, “TYRP1” at 9p23, “TYRP2” at 13q31-32, “P” at 15q11.2-12, and “MC1R” at 16q24.3 (Sturm, Box, and Ramsay 1998). Subsequent work has identified five non-synonymous polymorphisms at the MC1R site (Rana and others 1999). Polymorphisms have been related to phenotype (Harding and others 2000). And gene-enzyme-protein reaction chains have been identified (Kanetsky and others 2002).

http://www.backintyme.com/Essay021215.htm

wa:do

 

[Songofmorning]

JerryL, first of all longer DNA strands is not an addition of genetic information. For example, no amoeba has as much DNA as a human being, no matter how many mutations it has. It just doesn't happen. When I say genetic information, I mean an addition of new DNA information not a replication and add on of what already exists. Frameshift mutations and Insertion mutations give detrimental results to an existing species not a new species. Second, a human egg is single celled and it does remain that way forever if it is not fertilized by a human sperm. Of course adaptation is not inherited that is why there are clear examples of adaptation in our world but not one of evolution, which basically states that random mutations caused by chance which are proven to be detrimental cause new species by the addition of new DNA.
If you don't think that mutations are detrimental then explain why the human body would have such a rigid safeguard mechanism against mutations? Wouldn't the human body be considered counter evolution if it tries to do everything in its power to keep itself from changing?

 

[Songofmorning]

Painted wolf, very interesting. I'm definitely enjoying the article. Thanks!

 

[mr.guy]

How are viral mutations detrimental?

 

[painted wolf]

Actually the human body has had several recent bennificial mutations... from increases in resistance to heart disease, to resistance to AIDS/HIV.

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoHumBenMutations.html

and size of your DNA isn't nessisarily a indication of your 'advanceness' or age. Remember that most harmful mutations are weeded out, in something as simple as a Bacterium they don't need a lot of DNA to get the job done. Thus they don't need to hang on to a lot of mutations.

This is best observed in the Pelagibacter ubique, it has only 1354 genes... no more than is absolutely nessisary to maintain itself. No viral insertions, no extra anything.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4166076.stm

The largest Virus (mimivirus) is just at the point of qualifying as a living thing in terms of DNA with 1260 genes.
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041011/pf/041011-14_pf.html

The smallest Virus (hepititus B) has just 3200 base pairs in its entire genome.
http://www.brown.edu/Courses/Bio_160/Projects2000/HepatitisB/virus.html

Another common mistake is that Bacteria that live today are the same bacteria that firs showed up billions of years ago. That is a mistake. New Species of Bacteria are evolving all the time, far faster than more complex animals are capable of. This speedy turnover works as a highly efficent means of keeping genetic errata out of the genome.
Unlike our slower rates of reproduction and mutation... we need as many individuals as possible, thus we hang on to mutations if they arn't absolutely detrimental.

wa:do

 

[Flappycat]

Why don't you people just treat it as a creation myth? If you treated your religion more as a culture and way of life than letting it conflict with fact, you'd get along a lot better.

 

[Yerda]

Of course adaptation is not inherited that is why there are clear examples of adaptation in our world but not one of evolution, which basically states that random mutations caused by chance which are proven to be detrimental cause new species by the addition of new DNA.

You're making an assumption that genetic mutations cannot confer advantages to an organism. A mutation that allows DNA polymerases to remain stable at higher temperatures would come in handy if you live in a hot spring, no? The environment a gene works within determines its usefulness and the benefit of a possible mutation.

 

[linwood]

Who's more rational?

If they got rid of the Torah that argument would be over.

 

[JerryL]

JerryL, first of all longer DNA strands is not an addition of genetic information.

You haven't said what "genetic information" is... and I did ask.

For example, no amoeba has as much DNA as a human being, no matter how many mutations it has. It just doesn't happen.

Irrellevent. I've offered you a mechanism for lengthening DNA strands which is observed to actually occur.

I would imagine that long before you'd brought the lengths to match between aomeba and human; it wouldn't be an aomeba anymore.

When I say genetic information, I mean an addition of new DNA information not a replication and add on of what already exists.

An insertion is not of a combination already in the DNA strand; and a copying to the end ceases to be the same as soon as either has a mutation. What is "information"?

Frameshift mutations and Insertion mutations give detrimental results to an existing species not a new species.

Not true at all. The worry with the bird flu right now is that it will get an insertion from a human flu and become capable of travelling from person to person. This would obviously not be a detriment for that flu.

Second, a human egg is single celled and it does remain that way forever if it is not fertilized by a human sperm.

... at which point it becomes multicellular; disproving your claim.

. Of course adaptation is not inherited that is why there are clear examples of adaptation in our world but not one of evolution

Salmon (http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/arc...1900salmon.html)

Goatsbeard ("Three species of wildflowers called goatsbeards were introduced to the United States from Europe shortly after the turn of the century. Within a few decades their populations expanded and began to encounter one another in the American West. Whenever mixed populations occurred, the specied interbred (hybridizing) producing sterile hybrid offspring. Suddenly, in the late forties two new species of goatsbeard appeared near Pullman, Washington. Although the new species were similar in appearance to the hybrids, they produced fertile offspring. The evolutionary process had created a separate species that could reproduce but not mate with the goatsbeard plants from which it had evolved.")

Two strains of Drosophila paulistorum developed hybrid sterility of male offspring between 1958 and 1963. Artificial selection induced strong intra-strain mating preferences. (Test for speciation: sterile offspring and lack of interbreeding affinity.) Dobzhansky, Th., and O. Pavlovsky, 1971. "An experimentally created incipient species of Drosophila", Nature 23:289-292

Rapid speciation of the Faeroe Island house mouse, which occurred in less than 250 years after man brought the creature to the island. (Test for speciation in this case is based on morphology. It is unlikely that forced breeding experiments have been performed with the parent stock.) Stanley, S., 1979. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, San Francisco, W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 41

Formation of five new species of cichlid fishes which formed since they were isolated less than 4000 years ago from the parent stock, Lake Nagubago. (Test for speciation in this case is by morphology and lack of natural interbreeding. These fish have complex mating rituals and different coloration. While it might be possible that different species are inter-fertile, they cannot be convinced to mate.) Mayr, E., 1970. Populations, Species, and Evolution, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. p. 348

page 22 of the February, 1989 issue of Scientific American. It's called "A Breed Apart." It tells about studies conducted on a fruit fly, Rhagoletis pomonella, that is a parasite of the hawthorn tree and its fruit, which is commonly called the thorn apple. About 150 years ago, some of these flies began infesting apple trees, as well. The flies feed an breed on either apples or thorn apples, but not both. There's enough evidence to convince the scientific investigators that they're witnessing speciation in action. Note that some of the investigators set out to prove that speciation was not happening; the evidence convinced them otherwise.

which basically states that random mutations caused by chance which are proven to be detrimental cause new species by the addition of new DNA.

Where in the theory of evolution is this claimed?

If you don't think that mutations are detrimental then explain why the human body would have such a rigid safeguard mechanism against mutations? Wouldn't the human body be considered counter evolution if it tries to do everything in its power to keep itself from changing?

No.

Firstly, there's no way for a body to be "coutner to evolution". Secondly, the fact that the human body does form inhereted mutations establishes that the process is occuring within homo sapiens. Do you really need me to offer dozens of examples ranging from mutation-rate studies in relation to proximity to radiation to popular mutations like Sickle-cell?