You make a good point, WWF, but organisms with negative mutations usually die off rather quickly, so those mutations do not get passed on to the offspring. Therefore, these mutations are not a standard and do not hinder the species as a whole, but if an organism has a positive mutation and this lets it survive better than the other organisms, it will be more likely to pass on this new trait causing a new trait to be the standard of said species, or creating a new species all together. Simply put, negative mutations usually are not passed on (such as with cancer), but positive mutations can be passed on and can help a species survive. Granted, positive mutations are rare, and this is why evolution takes so very long to occur.

WWF, that's because humans change and alter natural selection in our own species. We make our own environments, so we are not dependent upon our natural environment to change, but more upon the one we create ourselves. For example, if someone with cystic fibrosis was out in the wild with no tools, they would die because of their mutation, thusly they would not be able to pass it on to the next generation, but humans have created their OWN environments where these people can live safely and have children, thusly spreading the mutation further. If we were all in the wild with none of our technologies or tools, the weak and unfit (such as with mutations as previously stated) would die whereas the physically fit would survive and irradicate those mutations. The only reason we pass on those mutations now is because we help those people live with medicines and extra care, as well as recessive alleles as Matt said (I forgot about that one!).

There is also the case of allele dominance and that can mean these conditions are passed on but if they are recessive they'll not affect unless both alleles are recessive. Cancer tends to be a mutation that is fatal and usually does not occur till old age, it is also not always genetic.

OK. I'm hesitant to get into this thread, as I spent about 3 hours on it yesterday

Anyway- WWF, you are just wrong about something.
It is a proven fact that the majority of mutations are neutral.

1. The claim is beside the point. Evolution is a two part process—variation and selection—the claim ignores selection processes. The theory of evolution does not need more than a few adaptive or "beneficial" mutations. The number of maladaptive mutations is simply irrelevant - these mutations are selected out and the few adaptive mutations go on.
2. Whether a mutation is harmful or beneficial or neutral in terms of increasing the functionality or survival of an organism is highly contextual: a mutation that can be harmful in one environment (such as a decreased subcutaneous fat layer on a polar animal) could turn out to be helpful if the environment changes (such as if the temperature increases). Aside from mutations which simply destroy embryonic development or cause premature death, there is no real "objective" measure of whether a mutation is harmful or not.
3. Similarly, whether or not a mutation is ultimately harmful or beneficial can also be quite complex. Sickle Cell Anemia, although life-threatening when homozygous, can result in a benefit. People who are heterozygous for sickle cell anemia are 25% less likely to get malaria from mosquitoes, as the sickle cells die almost immediately after the malarial parasites enter them.
4. Most mutations are actually classified as "neutral," given that their effects are not salient enough to effect an organism one way or the other at the present time. However, the accumulation of such small changes can have an effect over time, or could prove beneficial in a different context or because of a subsequent mutation.
5. Many beneficial gene variants have been studied:
* The CKR5 gene produces a protein which determines what is able to enter a cell. An allele produced by a single nucleotide deletion in the CKR5 gene confers resistance to HIV (Dean et al. 1996).
* A point mutation in the LPR5 gene causes high bone density, which could be adaptive in environments where one is likely to be injured. (Boyden et al. 2002)
* The HbS gene that causes the harmful trait of sickle cell anemia also has the benefit of providing some resistance to the disease malaria (a selective advantage in some environments).
6. In bacteria, plasmids often mutate to grant antibiotic resistance, which is a beneficial mutation for the bacterium. As a result, penicillin and other antibiotics are now becoming much less useful than it once was.
7. Mutations in a region of DNA following a gene duplication generally have no ill effect on the organism.
8. There has been no human (or any vertebrate, for that matter) that has ever lived who had three functional eyes. That the claim even mentions the possibility betrays a gross ignorance of the genetic basis for bilateral symmetry. The claim is clearly a creationist Just So Story that has achieved folk tale status.

from:
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Most_mutations_are_harmful

Here's the talk origins:


1. Most mutations are neutral. Nachman and Crowell estimate around 3 deleterious mutations out of 175 per generation in humans (2000). Of those that have significant effect, most are harmful, but a significant fraction are beneficial. The harmful mutations do not survive long, and the beneficial mutations survive much longer, so when you consider only surviving mutations, most are beneficial.

2. Beneficial mutations are commonly observed. They are common enough to be problems in the cases of antibiotic resistance in disease-causing organisms and pesticide resistance in agricultural pests (e.g., Newcomb et al. 1997; these are not merely selection of pre-existing variation.) They can be repeatedly observed in laboratory populations (Wichman et al. 1999). Other examples include the following:
* Mutations have given bacteria the ability to degrade nylon (Prijambada et al. 1995).
* Plant breeders have used mutation breeding to induce mutations and select the beneficial ones (FAO/IAEA 1977).
* Certain mutations in humans confer resistance to AIDS (Dean et al. 1996; Sullivan et al. 2001) or to heart disease (Long 1994; Weisgraber et al. 1983).
* A mutation in humans makes bones strong (Boyden et al. 2002).
* Transposons are common, especially in plants, and help to provide beneficial diversity (Moffat 2000).
* In vitro mutation and selection can be used to evolve substantially improved function of RNA molecules, such as a ribozyme (Wright and Joyce 1997).

3. Whether a mutation is beneficial or not depends on environment. A mutation that helps the organism in one circumstance could harm it in another. When the environment changes, variations that once were counteradaptive suddenly become favored. Since environments are constantly changing, variation helps populations survive, even if some of those variations do not do as well as others. When beneficial mutations occur in a changed environment, they generally sweep through the population rapidly (Elena et al. 1996).

4. High mutation rates are advantageous in some environments. Hypermutable strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are found more commonly in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients, where antibiotics and other stresses increase selection pressure and variability, than in patients without cystic fibrosis (Oliver et al. 2000).

5. Note that the existence of any beneficial mutations is a falsification of the young-earth creationism model (Morris 1985, 13).

Links:
Williams, Robert. n.d. Examples of beneficial mutations and natural selection. http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html
Williams, Robert. n.d. Examples of beneficial mutations in humans. http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoHumBenMutations.html
References:

1. Boyden, Ann M., Junhao Mao, Joseph Belsky, Lyle Mitzner, Anita Farhi, Mary A. Mitnick, Dianqing Wu, Karl Insogna, and Richard P. Lifton. 2002. High bone density due to a mutation in LDL-receptor-related protein 5. New England Journal of Medicine 346: 1513-1521, May 16, 2002. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/346/20/1513
2. Dean, M. et al. 1996. Genetic restriction of HIV-1 infection and progression to AIDS by a deletion allele of the CKR5 structural gene. Science 273: 1856-1862.
3. Elena, S. F., V. S. Cooper and R. E. Lenski. 1996. Punctuated evolution caused by selection of rare beneficial mutations. Science 272: 1802-1804.
4. FAO/IAEA. 1977. Manual on Mutation Breeding, 2nd ed. Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency.
5. Long, Patricia. 1994. A town with a golden gene. Health 8(1) (Jan/Feb.): 60-66.
6. Moffat, Anne S. 2000. Transposons help sculpt a dynamic genome. Science 289: 1455-1457.
7. Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books.
8. Nachman, M. W. and S. L. Crowell. 2000. Estimate of the mutation rate per nucleotide in humans. Genetics 156(1): 297-304.
9. Newcomb, R. D. et al. 1997. A single amino acid substitution converts a carboxylesterase to an organophosporus hydrolase and confers insecticide resistance on a blowfly. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 94: 7464-7468.
10. Oliver, Antonio et al. 2000. High frequency of hypermutable Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis lung infection. Science 288: 1251-1253. See also: Rainey, P. B. and R. Moxon, 2000. When being hyper keeps you fit. Science 288: 1186-1187. See also: LeClerc, J. E. and T. A. Cebula, 2000. Pseudomonas survival strategies in cystic fibrosis (letter), 2000. Science 289: 391-392.
11. Prijambada, I. D., S. Negoro, T. Yomo and I. Urabe. 1995. Emergence of nylon oligomer degradation enzymes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO through experimental evolution. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 61(5): 2020-2022.
12. Sullivan, Amy D., Janis Wigginton and Denise Kirschner. 2001. The coreceptor mutation CCR5-delta-32 influences the dynamics of HIV epidemics and is selected for by HIV. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 98: 10214-10219.
13. Weisgraber K. H., S. C. Rall Jr., T. P. Bersot, R. W. Mahley, G. Franceschini, and C. R. Sirtori. 1983. Apolipoprotein A-I Milano. Detection of normal A-I in affected subjects and evidence for a cysteine for arginine substitution in the variant A-I. Journal of Biological Chemistry 258: 2508-2513.
14. Wichman, H. A. et al. 1999. Different trajectories of parallel evolution during viral adaptation. Science 285: 422-424.
15. Wright, M. C. and G. F. Joyce. 1997. Continuous in vitro evolution of catalytic function. Science 276: 614-617. See also: Ellington, A. D., M. P. Robertson and J. Bull, 1997. Ribozymes in wonderland. Science 276: 546-547.

Further Reading:
Harter, Richard. 1999. Are mutations harmful? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html

Peck, J. R. and A. Eyre-Walker. 1997. The muddle about mutations. Nature 387: 135-136.

Anyway- I'm taking a break from all this debating for a little bit, mainly to catch up on my reading.

Cheers,
SQLserver

Oh Please! What a load! Anyone can understand the basics, come down off your high horse. I don't even think you read the study. I did, all the way through twice!

Are you trying to dazzle us with brilliance or baffle us with BS? You just like to hear yourself condescend and you're not helping anyone with the basics. So just give it a rest. If you have a point make it and be content with that OK?

Louis Pasteur



Tarheelsfan

He explained that full organisms can't arise out of thin air. Not from organic precursors.

Ok, thanks. Btw, your avatar, is that where you went to school?

Yup

Neutral mutations are irrelevant since they don't affect the organism one way or another. What's important are gains and losses. We see more losses and disadvantages than gains, so mutations don't support the theory of evolution.

What you posted about negative mutations not lasting long isn't true in most circumstances. Mutations that causes diseases like cancer don't just go away.

Not too much stands out as far as positive mutations. Some are helpful in humans, but nothing groundbreaking.

I wouldn't rely too much on talkorigins or wikipedia. Neither website is very credible. Talkorigins carries a bias in favor of skepticism and anybody can post and edit on wiki.

Please show a legitimate study that is peer-reviewed in which there are higher rates of positive mutations than negative mutations. What I've seen has always shown a significantly higher number of negative mutations.

Cool. I was just curious because i'm originally from MD. Go Terps!!
Anyways, back to the discussion at hand.

I know I said I was jumping off of this crazy train (OZZY) but I can't help myself. I might ramble here. We're talking about the basics. This is a HOT section of the boards. No one who discusses, or debates here is "basic" or average. If you don't have your poop together here more than at a basic level, you'll get shredded in no time and limp back to wherever it was you came from. I'm saying - almost everyone on this board is above average.

Doug is a smart dude, I don't know what he does for a living, but I'm pretty sure that Cimber and Cope work as microbiologists - they're pro's. Mattshark is pretty much a zoologist. What's basic to them is not basic to the general population. I know people. I've talked to people. I graduated from college awhile ago, and I've been a professional ever since. In school, I took all the basic science courses I had to to graduate, period. I did take a bunch of math, but I liked math. I've been posting in this forum for about two months. Since that time through osmosis and personal study I've learned alot. I personally know two people who actually teach evolution and I can tell you that I'm actually more up on the subject than they are - because of these boards. If you talk to 95 out of 100 people on the street, they wouldn't have a clue about anything we're discussing here. I think that covers the basic aspect of things.

I actually know adults who don't remember how to convert a fraction to a decimal. I know for a fact that as many as 60% of middle school students in some American schools don't know how to either. So, what's my point? This is a place where pretty solid minds discuss. If you've got a point to make - you should just make it. Trying to "rise up" and show yourself just pisses people off. We are all capable of understanding concepts and arguing a point. I guess that's what I wanted to say.

I still think both creationism and evolution (along with everything else) are illusions made by the mind (possibly a collective mind) and that pure consciousness is the only real reality which is

a ) uncreated and eternal

b ) is always perfect and never needs to evolve

I propose we focus on this third mystic alternative

I dont remember either. . . . . . .

Has anyone here read the book, "What about Origins?" by Dr. A. J. Monty White?
If yes, what is your opinion of Monty White's propositions?

Regards,
Karlis

There only needs to be some WWF and it is not the only route for evolution.

Also you try vandalising wiki and see how long it takes to get fixed. It is actually one of the most accurate on-line encyclopaedia's.

What is wrong with talkorigins? It sources and references everything. There is a different between being biased by ignoring evidence and using shoddy workmanship (Aig, etc.) and being 'biased' because you don't like what it says.

P.S.: I think what we have is a communication gap. To continue with the individuals-changing-species example: The evolution side has been saying for so long that one critter becomes another one, that they don't stop to think that to those who aren't biologists, it sounds like they're saying that you can watch a cow turn into a horse. That, of course, is not at all what is meant or said, but that is what is heard. We need to be careful, not just with words, but with concepts. Among our colleagues we can speak in a sort of shorthand and people know what we're saying, but that doesn't work when the reader lacks the background.
Doug

P.P.S.: New species can arise from processes other than mutation. Reshuffling old genes into new mixes is common (That's what influenza does.). Plants often get other species' DNA mixed into their own, courtesy of errant pollen grains and bacterial activities (Thus, the concern over bt-resistance spreading from crops like corn into plants like ragweed.). Simply altering the timing with which genes become active or inactive can generate a new species. And all these processes can intermingle with mutation and each other to produce some wild effects.
Doug

P.P.P.S.: Mutations are more-often detrimental than beneficial. When you have a system that works and you randomly change it, odds are the change is just going to screw things up. Most mutations are benign because they occur in non-functional DNA. If the light switch is in the O-F-F position, it doesn't much matter what you do to the wiring. Most detrimental mutations are lethal, usually immediately. Often the mutant cannot even survive in the womb and a stillbirth results. Most babies die in their first few months of life, often due to genetic traits that make independent survival impossible, so many detrimental mutations are eliminated before the individual bearing them even comes close to reproductive maturity. The assortment of mutations gets winnowed before it even has a chance to get into the population at large. Those mutations never become part of the species' genetic complement and have no impact on evolution.

Of the mutations that remain, some are beneficial, some are not. "Beneficial" means the owner of the mutation has more kids at the time he dies, than does someone else. Even if a mutation is not detrimental per se, it can be eliminated by the arbitrariness of processes like accidental death and sexual selection; some potentially-beneficial genes can be lost this way. Detrimental genes work at a disadvantage when it comes to producing offspring; thus, random events are more-likely to eliminate their owners (because there are fewer of them to eliminate). A "detrimental" characteristic that successfully becomes established is not usually immediately fatal; all it does is pre-dispose its owner to environmental hazards and the like.
Doug

P.P.P.P.S.: About 95% of the human genome consists of endless copies of just two genes. One of these codes for the protein that copies DNA during reproduction. This gene busily makes copies of itself and inserts them into the genome. This occurs at a rate faster than natural selection can remove it from the population, so these mostly-benign changes accumulate. An examination of the genome suggests that, as a species, we're barely functional, that it is surprising that we have survived as long as we have. Whatever made US, it wasn't a "perfect" job, far from it.
Doug

P.P.P.P.P.S.: Cancer is a poor example of a "detrimental" gene, as there are many things other than genetics that play a part, such as viral infections, environmental poisons (2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, DDT, etc.), etc. These cloud the issue and make discussion difficult. Better find another example.
Doug

Cancer does not quite work like that. Cancer is not necessarily genetic defect. Cancer is the lack of growth control mechanisms being expressed in the cell, ultimately this effects regulators like p53, p21, retinoblastoma protein and many other of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors. Mutations to these cell growth regulators in germ-line cells would result in the termination of the offspring long before birth.

Cancers we see in adults are the result of various things; virus, chemicals (like base-analogues or cyclin inhibitors), mutations etc. Often times its not one of these things alone that cause cancer. A somatic cell is about the most redundant system imaginable. Because of this, we need an accumulation of errors before we get the runaway effect. Once a cell accumulates a degree of errors or faces some kind of regulatory inhibition (as is the case of cervical cancer and HPV) it cross the "threshold of no return". From this point on we can think of the cancerous cell as cell biology in rebellion (I'll touch more on this in one moment).

Because we cannot alter our genetic make up midlife, these changes cannot be passed on to progeny. The only effect they could have on evolution is if cancer kills an individual before reproductive age. This is more like a stoke of bad luck in the game of evolution. Though, in a natural environment this is rarely the case, many other things are likely to kill you before you can accumulate errors on a scale to produce cancer.

So to recap,
We dont pass on cancer, it is not hereditary as it arises in somatic cell lines. Certainly a predisposition to cancer could be possible, but not cancer itself. Cancer is not solely genetic, it has many underlaying causes (which seem far to great for the scope of this post!)




Thats a good point Doug.

You know as an interesting aside, we can even look at cancer in a context that makes it beneficial. Anyone have any guesses how?







As I noted above we can think of cancer as cell biology in rebellion. Let's stop for a moment and think what we really are. We are a collection -a community, of cells who have come together. The community consists of many individual cell types, each with distinctive "personalities" (My favorite has to be CD8+ T cells, or "Killer T cells", I mean with a name like that who couldn't like them?).

The cells that comprise this colony that makes us, us -Have come to some mutual agreement with one another. And the name of the game is altruism. Adipose cells spend their whole lives storing fat, Axial neurons spend all their time and energy signaling, pancreatic secretory cells do nothing but make digestive enzymes.

Each of these cell types is specialized and this specialization allows the colony to face much greater demands in the environment. Each cell type though, is dependent on the others -To a degree that I would compare to a blind naked puppy to his mother. Start taking away types of cells and the whole fragile house of cards comes tumbling down.

The specialized nature of each cell, requires great demands from the cell. A neuron spends all of its time and resources doing what a neuron does, because of this it has no time to worry about successful sexual reproduction. In the evolutionary game this would seem counter-intuitive, why would a cell give up its ability to reproduce in a way that yields completely new and possibly more successful progeny? The answer lays in the genes. Your somatic cells all share the same genes as your gametes (well most of the time, but for simplicities sake lets keep it at that). This means that while a neuron may never get the change to reproduce sexually, it can be sure by doing its job for the colony that the genes it carries will be passed on. Thus we have a fragile system of based on this principle -Supporting the germ line cells by doing your specialized task ensures a chance that your genes will be passed on. We can even think of our bodies as a kind of complex support systems for our germ-line cells.

In your body cells die all the time. Some get killed by stress, others by mechanical methods, some by chemicals, some by age and others recognize they are accumulating errors in a dangerous way and go the way of the lemming (I know, I know lemmings don't really commit suicide). This is important for keeping the status quo of the colony.

But then cancer comes along. The changes in cancer cells provide them with a selective advantage to their fellows in their local environment. Cancer in a very real sense is cheaters. These cells have broken the golden rule of colonial living -Support the other cells by preforming your specialized function. What is a cancerous cell? A cell that has undergone changes that allow uncontrolled proliferation, in other words the greedy b******* are reproducing like bunnies. If that is not bad enough, cancerous cells drop, they drop! -their specialized function. They become undifferentiated. Their whole lives have now become a race to make as many copies of themselves as possible with no regard for the fragile cell colony (Sound like any other cells you can think of?).

Now, at the beginning up there somewhere I mentioned that we could even find a context where cancer is beneficial. Do ya see it? To the cancer cell, that has rebelled against the rest of colony because of a selective advantage, the changes it accumulated are great! It will now out grow, out compete, out consume its neighbors and fellows. Ultimately this little cell and his millions of progeny are short sited, while they disregard their specializations they are still somewhat dependent upon the cells around them (I say somewhat because you can take a cancer cell line away from these other cells, provide it with nutrients and it will go on dividing and living for ever). The rebellious mentality causes the collapse of the colony -the death of the organism and an end to their cell line.

In this I think we can reinforce a good proverb, -cheaters never prosper!


~Regards

Some? Again, we don't see very many positive results from mutations. Mutations aren't known for contribing to fitness.

If wikipedia meets your standards than great. I am skeptical of it since anybody can edit it.

"everything is poison, depending on the amount ingested" Theofrastos von Hohnheim, Paracelsus.

Guess again. EVERY beneficial (contributing to reproductive success) gene that now exists in humans was the result of a mutation.
Period. That's millions of positive results of mutations, just to keep your body functioning.

You seem to have a mind-set that says mutations are bad. They're neither good nor bad - they just are. In nature, there is no good or bad; things just exist and do stuff. They either work or they don't. Nature does not make value-judgements.
Doug

I do not believe science is true yet. It still has a lot more to go to convince me.

YES - cancer is evolution in action. A cell begins reproducing and those that produce more progeny become more common - until the organism dies and they do with it.

There have been two times that this has been subverted though. There is the HeLa cell line, produced from the cervical tumor of Henrietta Lacks. They can now life free and infect cell cultures like an INFECTION. Can't infect organisms and can only live in culture, but still. And THEN there was that contaigous canine sexually transmitted tumor I read about last year - scientists found dogs with urinary tract tumors not genetically related to their own cells, took samples, and by comparing the genomes of variouis similar tumors they found it had been spreading from dog to dog for at least hundreds of years after one original tumor gained the ability to fragmetn and transmit cells. You could possibly consider this transmissable tumor a new species!!

Everything is science. Your medicine, your computer, your home, etc.

Are you saying science has yet to convince you that gravity exists? That two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom form water and is not created by a slight of God's hand?

How much more truth do you need to convince you?

Ouch. This is not even possible based on what is known about mutations.

You're right, I do have a mindset that most mutations that affect living organisms are negative.

Saying mutations "just are" is completely false because it's obvious that mutations have caused many diseases in living organisms, so they can obviously be deleterious. I've already named 5 common mutations in humans that are deleterious in this thread. Can you name a favorable mutation that occurs in humans more frequently than cancer? How about cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy?

Evolution works in mysterious ways.

What? Is that not a satisfactory answer?

No body is saying that mutations are "good" or "bad". Some mutations have benefits, and some mutations are detrimental, but they aren't "good" or "bad" things. Mutations are just mutations.

Tell that to someone who has a life-threatening disease because of mutations.

So you're saying you're satisfied with that answer when Christians give it?

Sickle cell trait

Thank you. This article says it clearly...


"These are "negative" mutations. A mutation that severely impairs the body's defense system against bacterial infection, for instace would fall into this category.

Even less common are mutations that give the recepient an advantage over other people."


This is quoted verbatim from the article you posted.

I like how you twist the wording of the article to suit your agenda, WWF.

No one here has stated there are not 'negative' mutations. The disagreement is your lumping the negative in with the neutral and saying "by far most mutations are negative or neutral" when saying "by far most mutations are positive or neutral" is just as true - because neutral mutations outweigh neavily both the negative and positive mutations combined.

Your disingenuity does your credence as someone who follows the tenets of a religion that frowns upon dishonesty no favours whatsoever.

No comment on this positive mutation of sickle cell trait though?

Why ignore the science of your own article? How is it twisting when it's a direct quote from the article?

Neutral is just that...neutral. I'm not lumping these in with anything as you claim because they're not all that significant. What's important is the positive mutations and the deleterious mutations, because these contribute to change. As this article confirms, the deleterious mutations occur more frequently.

It would be great if more positive mutations occur like in the sickle-cell trait. Unfortunately this isn't the case.

It's not disingenuinity to report things as they are true to life. Why ignore the facts as they are? It's not dishonesty. Again, I posted a quote verbatim from the article YOU cited. Unless you feel the article YOU CITED is dishonest, then you are the one showing disingenuity by fussing about me taking a quote directly from an article you thought was worthy of presentation.

Again, it would be nice if positive mutations occurred more frequently, but unfortunately this just isn't the case. It's the tenets of the theory of evolution that are pushing the idea that positive mutations are contributing to positive mutations that lead to increased fitness and positive transitions in species. THis just isn't true, since mutations are more likely to be fatal or cause an organism to be unfit.

On the contrary, I'm wondering if the believers who have used that argument will be satisfied by its use in this case.

If you don't accept it when believers use it what makes you think believers will accept it when you use it? Do you think you're more trustworthy or that they are more trusting?

And the unfit will be the ones more likely to die... hence the mutation is less likely to be passed on.

Evidence of this in humans?

Give it a few million years and it will be gone WWF

Because if they dont, they're being hypocrites. Its their argument. Personally, I dont find it to be a valid argument... but some believers have used it so therefore they must find it a valid argument.

It doesnt have anything to do with trust, it has to do with who accepts the argument as valid, and who uses it as a scapegoat.

If a believer accepts my use of the argument, good for them. They truely think it is valid. If the believer who has used the argument doesnt accept it in this case, they're being hypocrites because they know its not a valid argument, yet they use it anyway just to reassure themselves because theres no counter argument to it.

So, you're being a hypocrite. You've used it and apparently expect it to be accepted, but are unwilling to accept it when believers use it.

I don't think this thread will stay open that long.

You still don't get it, WWF. It's not the frequency with which mutations occur, it's the inheritability that matters. Mutations that are disadvantageous are not inherited nearly as often as mutations that are advantageous. Thus positive mutations, while occurring less frequently, contribute the entirety of the genome of a species over time (although we have altered the natural balance through modern medicine, I'll grant that).

Perhaps I was wrong in calling you disingenuous, perhaps you really don't understand the basic concepts involved.

Well, haemophilia is a good example of this.

Naturally, now humans are in a way fighting evolution, because we treat sickness and diseas, so even the unfit may survive, but this was not always the case.

Back a long time ago, before we had the treatment, anyone with haemophilia would have been less likely to survive into their adulthood, because any minor injury could have caused them to bleed out and die.

Another example would be Trisomy 18. 90% of infants with it die in the first 6 months of their lives. A very small percentage survive past infancy.

How am I a hypocrite? I have outright stated that I dont consider it to be a valid argument... but I do know others have used it as a valid argument.

If you consider me a hypocrite for that, then so be it. It doesnt change anything. It doesnt bother me what you think of me.

Evidence that positive mutations are inherited more frequently than deleterious mutations?

You're saying I don't understand the basic concepts involved, but that's not it. The basic concepts you're pushing just aren't what's being observed.

I mentioned 5 common deleterious mutations in this thread. However, there are a lot more than what I've mentioned.

You said believers would be hypocrites if they did not accept your use of that argument as valid. You also said you did not accept that argument when used by believers. So, if believers are hypocrites for not accepting your use of the argument, you are a hypocrite for the same reason and also for using an argument you yourself do not consider valid when used by others. This does not have anything to do with what I think of you. It's what you have made yourself by your own claim.

After considering what you wrote here Copasetic, I am becoming more and more convinced that for life to evolve, and then to keep evolving into more and more complex forms is a statistical impossibility. To show what I mean, I will copy-paste what you wrote, and "isolate" ... separate ... your phrases, so that each phrase stands out from other phrases, and emphasises the other phrases.

My purpose for doing that? To emphasise the obvious multiplicity of millioms-upon-millions of activities that MUST interact with each other -- for the benefit of each other -- so that a complex life form can evolve from scratch, and then to keep on evolving into many more (even more complex) life forms.

Without this nearly endless multiplicity of benign, mutual co-operation within a "community-organism", a complex structure such as a worm, let alone a human being, could not exist. Thus, for life to evolve and then to keep growing and evolving into more and more complex forms, till it evolves into a conscious human being seems to be statistically impossible.

Let's stop for a moment and think what we really are.

*We are a collection - a community, of cells who have come together.

*The community consists of many individual cell types, each with distinctive "personalities"

* The cells that comprise this colony that makes us, us -
* Have come to some mutual agreement with one another. ***And the name of the game is altruism.***

~ Adipose cells spend their whole lives storing fat,
~ Axial neurons spend all their time and energy signaling,
~ pancreatic secretory cells do nothing but make digestive enzymes.
~ [plus how many millions more, of different "thingys"?]

~Each of these cell types is specialized
~and this specialization allows the colony to face much greater demands in the environment.

###Each cell type though, is dependent on the others
- To a degree that I would compare to a blind naked puppy to his mother.

Start taking away types of cells and the whole fragile house of cards comes tumbling down.

The specialized nature of each cell, requires great demands from the cell.
* A neuron spends all of its time and resources doing what a neuron does,
= because of this it has no time to worry about successful sexual reproduction.

In the evolutionary game this would seem counter-intuitive, why would a cell give up its ability to reproduce in a way that yields completely new and possibly more successful progeny?
= The answer lays in the genes.
= Your somatic cells all share the same genes as your gametes (well most of the time, but for simplicities sake lets keep it at that).
* This means that while a neuron may never get the change to reproduce sexually,
* it can be sure by doing its job for the colony that the genes it carries will be passed on.

Thus we have a fragile system of based on this principle
- Supporting the germ line cells by doing your specialized task ensures a chance that your genes will be passed on.
= We can even think of our bodies as a kind of complex support systems for our germ-line cells.
-=-=-=-=-

Intelligent creation sounds more and more likely, from a statistical point.
Karlis

Uh oh, you used the "s" word. You thought you were getting it before. Just wait. tsk tsk tsk.

You want a positive mutation? Okay. How about AIDS resistance?

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/01/66198
http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/bio...estudy/hiv.html
http://www.thetech.org/genetics/news.php?id=13
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/...10823083108.htm
http://pmsol3.wordpress.com/2006/09/10/mor...tic-resistance/
http://www.thenetworkadministrator.com/article8763.htm
http://jcraigventersciencefoundation.com/a.../bone_dna.shtml

Oops, guess we do have positive mutations, eh? As everyone has been saying, most mutations are not passed on to the next generation because of natural selection. Got it? If they are passed on it's because the trait is recessive, or that organism is benefited by the mutation. If the mutation is negative, the organism dies (most of the time). Humans are an exception because we treat and take care of people who have life threatening mutations. If we didn't care for them and support them with technology they would die and the mutations wouldn't be passed on as frequently.