Evolution is a Joke PT VII (back by popular demand)

Interesting... can you explain how you think this is NS and not Genetic Drift? I think it more on the lines of genetic drift.

Funny how people get them confused. In fact, on person argued that Genetic Drift was IN FACT evolution! Can you believe that?!??!

 

You have already posted false statements. I do not take your word for more than a child with chocolate plastered on their face and say they didn't get in the cookie jar.

Sorry folks... But, I already know that there are asexual ants, and that there are colonies of just female ants with no male ants whatsoever.

Not really good for evolution, but evolution is a crazy thing now isn't it!!!

 

1. Genetic drift is not adaptive. These changes are.

2. Genetic drift is essentially constant. But these changes decelerated as the organisms became more adapted to the environment.



3. Genetic drift is random. But these adaptations appeared repeatedly in different strains, at different times and often via different mutational mechanisms.

Those three things alone completely rule out genetic drift as an explanation.

 

Not be dead and breed... That was funny!

I do think things change, but the definition of evolution states that dung beetles and trees and roaches and us all have one common ancestor. I have a hard time with that.

I don't think change over time is a good definition of evolution since rocks also change over time. I do believe on should include common descent with modification specifically...

 

So... you say that natural selection can only happen if there is genetic variations... So, if there are cheetahs (and all of them are basically the same) then complexity will not happen?

 

Wrong assumption. It is only a question...

What if they don't hinder "yet"... have any examples where ecosystems have changed and an adaption, that other life within the species do not have, is not going to make this breed (or whatever) extinct?

I obviously wasn't explaining my question right. I was wondering if there is "the other end of the stick" when it comes to NS. Does it ever work against a lifeform since now we know that the lifeform does not deal with whether NS will pick this or that (or the ecosystems whichever how you want to describe it).

 

If you think most living organisms change over time...you believe in evolution.

The common ancestry of tree roaches, humans, and dung beetles does not change the fact that humans, dung beetles, and tree roaches show evidence of having changed over time.

Rocks are not living organisms, and you're right, they change too. Rocks however....have never become ill adapted to thier environment, and even if they did, they're not like organic matter. If a rock could die...it would still be there forever, or ground to bits, IE sand...and still be here forever. So NS doesn't affect rocks.

 

Now, is that NS or is it a case when there is no genetic drift? Like that African Tribe with two toes or something like that. When life is subjected to no genetic drift, thus pushing back bad things like the whole toe thing.

I forgot what it was called and also the name of the tribe. Sorry, but there are a lot of posts I must answer so I apologize if I do not have the time to look things up and be more specific.

I have heard of this, but I thought it more of a hypothesis. Isn’t this where they are trying to find “instinct” in coded gene sequences?

Yes… I concur…

 

It depends on how you define complexity.

But if a population has low genetic variation, then it it is at risk of extinction because of inability to adapt. Now it may simply be an example of the blind squirrel & nut phenomenon, but you have stumbled upon an interesting fact regarding cheetahs. As a species, cheetahs have famously low levels of genetic variation. This can probably be attributed to a population bottleneck they experienced around 10,000 years ago, barely avoiding extinction at the end of the last ice age.

But the good news is that if they manage to avoid a fatal pathogen or loss of habitat for long enough, random point mutations will replenish that genetic variation. In stable environments, genetic variation actually increases over time due to (are you ready) genetic drift of those point mutations through that population.

 

I think your example is more on the lines of speciation. I think that if the initial species of fish was introduced to the previous species in another place – a couple generations, they would be all one species again… I don’t believe, per definition, adaptation is equivalent to common descent with modification.

 

I have never seen that graph dealing with that experiment. Can you link it please? I really don't have time to look it up...

 

Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time. Lots of things change over time: trees lose their leaves, mountain ranges rise and erode, but they aren't examples of biological evolution because they don't involve descent through genetic inheritance.


http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_02

But, since there is not common descent with modification with the defintion of evolution, it just becomes rocks changing... NS plays (what they say) an important roll in evolution.

 

You can test that with ring species such as Arctic Gulls or California Salamanders. They essentially record an entire speciation "event" with living transitions at each step of the way.

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The two "ends" of the transition overlap in their range, but look very different and cannot interbreed. Yet if you follow the salamanders around the central valley you will find a series of populations that are always able to breed with the adjacent populations. There is a continuous, unbroken continuity of breeding around the ring. But as you move the genetic differences "add up" to what at the ends are distinct populations that cannot interbreed; i.e. different species.

One species has become two.

 

No problem.

J Arjan GM de Visser and Richard E Lenski, "Long-term experimental evolution in Escherichia coli. XI. Rejection of non-transitive interactions as cause of declining rate of adaptation," BMC Evolutionary Biology 2002, 2:19

 

Basic definition. Anything complex…

I really don’t think genetic variation is how or why life survives. I already know about cheetahs and that is why I picked them. Also, I know of this “bottleneck” as you call it within the history. Can you provide a link please… What is a bottleneck also, I know I’ve heard that before..

What is your definition of “random point mutation”? I think you should look up that before quoting it. Do you want to rephrase that?

 

Even though I attended UC Berkeley as an Anthropology major....While I agree that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor, I must dissagree with whichever professor whom insists that common ancestry is central to the definition of the word "evolution".

Single celled microbes could easilly be the common ancestor for everything living on Earth, do you agree?

 

Tautologies are really not very helpful.

I'm confused. If you already know all about this why are you asking for links and explanations?

A genetic "bottleneck" occurs when a species is significantly reduced in number for at least one whole generation, and the population is too small to contain all its original genetic variation. So... genes are lost.

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Genetic variation is not "how or why life survives." It is simply the raw material that natural selection needs to act. If all the genes are the same, then no individuals will have any selective advantage. But if the population has great variety in, oh, say something like body size, then there is a lot of opportunity for natural selection to select one set of genes as more advantageous than others.

Think for example of Insular Dwarfism. It's a common adaptation of large animals that get stranded on islands where resources are limited. But natural selection cannot select for smaller bodies unless in the original population some individuals are already smaller than others.

A single mutation of a single base pair in a single codon on the DNA molecule.

And no, I did not need to look it up or rephrase it.

 

Don't have time to look it up now, but that is propaganda put out during the Darwinism vs. Creationism debate...

I'll look up the specifics probably tomorrow moring (I'll come in early)...

 

Thank you! This is different from anything I have read thus far... I will take a look at it tomorrow morning...

 

WHAT the....?!?!? that did put a smile on my face...

Look Goldwater... You think after all this time you are going to come back and I'm just going to roll over that easy!!!

I have gained a fan base and a base of posters who would pluck my eyes out with dirty rat claws!!

I like you and all, but I am going to have to decline answering that. Because I do not believe that we are all related by circumstances not produced within any experimentation. Because opinions have no basis within the scientific method!!

 

Propaganda can be true. In this case, propaganda or not, it is true.

 

Skimmed over it, but found this interesting: What we do assert, based on our new data and analyses, is that non-transitive effects are either absent or much too weak to account for the pronounced overall deceleration in the rate of fitness gains measured relative to the ancestor. Consequently, this deceleration indicates that the pace of genetic adaptation has indeed slowed, although it has not completely stopped [3], in the long-term E. coli evolution experiment. Therefore, this and the other evolving populations must have fairly quickly incorporated mutations that provided the greatest gains, and their slower subsequent adaptation reflects beneficial mutations that are fewer in number, smaller in effect, or both [1,14].



How do you view that? Do you know what the experiment, but this concluded with or do you need more info... Have you read it? I do find it quite interesting... They do use the word "evolution" quite loosely and common ancestor trying to "push" people into believing this has anything to do with common descent and evolution... But, I will read more....

 

I do this to make sure we are on the same page of the defintion. You have no CLUE how many pages I went through with people who didn't know the defintion of something and argued about it for almost a YEAR!!!

But, my rebuttal will be tomorrow dealing with DNA sequences that show, during experimentation, that bottlenecks are only a hypothesis at best...

It will also cover some of the other things you posted, from what I read of the experiment, it will also cover that also...

 

Here you go again with your whole "true" thing... I told you about that... you JUST POSTED that there are no such thing as asexual ants!

YOU JUST POSTED THAT!!!!

We are starting to learn that if you say something "is" true it probably isn't...

 

I'll give you this... It could be.. It could... but there could be aliens, gremlins, demons and 150 Gods...



How was that for an answer?