Genetics and evolution

[Bamalaw92]

Maybe we can merge the question for creationist thread since the author of it has apparently given up or has seen the light

Or more likely has passed out from exhaustion!:biggrin:

 

[bamabake]

Or more likely has passed out from exhaustion!:biggrin:

lol. This is all your fault. My first mega thread I was in you wiped me out, but it taught me a few things too, like take a day or two away from it!

 

[KillVols]

Ping!

 

[BeccaBama]

here ya go...

 

[bamabake]

here ya go...

I am still waiting for just ONE.. JUST ONE refute from the anti creation folks from this thread. Of course that would include peeps actually reading it and after reading some of the silliest notions from the very thread it is doubtful that any anti creation peep will actually take the time.

 

[cbi1972]

I am still waiting for just ONE.. JUST ONE refute from the anti creation folks from this thread. Of course that would include peeps actually reading it and after reading some of the silliest notions from the very thread it is doubtful that any anti creation peep will actually take the time.

I'll start with the first post.

When you think about it evolution falls apart when you happen to notice there has never been one shred of evidence of information being added to DNA. It's always being taken away. Individual characteristics stay the same. Even the leading "Evolutionist" can't answer the simple question... Can you show any scientific evidence of information being added?

Insertion sequences add new genetic information.

 

[Crimson323]

And they're off! It's "bamabake" with an early lead, and close behind is "cbi" with "some valuable DNA information" following behind in third...

 

[cbi1972]

Darwin's basic theory was arrived at, through observation, that nature selects which species will survive and evolve.

This has never been observed.

cheers

The Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections

Antibiotic resistance spreads fast. Between 1979 and 1987, for example, only 0.02 percent of pneumococcus strains infecting a large number of patients surveyed by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were penicillin-resistant. CDC's survey included 13 hospitals in 12 states. Today, 6.6 percent of pneumococcus strains are resistant, according to a report in the June 15, 1994, Journal of the American Medical Association by Robert F. Breiman, M.D., and colleagues at CDC. The agency also reports that in 1992, 13,300 hospital patients died of bacterial infections that were resistant to antibiotic treatment.

 

[NYBamaFan]

The increased prevalence of antibiotic resistance is an outcome of evolution. Any population of organisms, bacteria included, naturally includes variants with unusual traits--in this case, the ability to withstand an antibiotic's attack on a microbe. When a person takes an antibiotic, the drug kills the defenseless bacteria, leaving behind--or "selecting," in biological terms--those that can resist it. These renegade bacteria then multiply, increasing their numbers a millionfold in a day, becoming the predominant microorganism.

This is not evolution - it is natural selection. There is a difference. There is no addition or reconstruction of genetic material involved...

 

[cbi1972]

This is not evolution - it is natural selection. There is a difference. There is no addition or reconstruction of genetic material involved...

The reason they are resistant in the first place is because of genetic mutation.

 

[NYBamaFan]

The reason they are resistant in the first place is because of genetic mutation.

Not true. They are resistant because there are many slightly different variants of the bacteria. To offer a human comparison, some have blue eyes, some have brown - some are faster, stronger, etc. The variants that are the least effected by the antibiotics survived. The rest died. When the only ones left reproduced, the result was the survival of an existing variant of the bacteria, but in greater prevalence because the antibiotic wiped out its competing variants.

Not evolution. Evolution requires the change of the bacteria into something that it wasn't before...

 

[cbi1972]

Not true. They are resistant because there are many slightly different variants of the bacteria. To offer a human comparison, some have blue eyes, some have brown - some are faster, stronger, etc. The variants that are the least effected by the antibiotics survived. The rest died. When the only ones left reproduced, the result was the survival of an existing variant of the bacteria, but in greater prevalence because the antibiotic wiped out its competing variants.

This hypothesis was tested by Luria and Delbruck in 1943.

It was well known that if a bacterial virus was added to a flask containing bacteria, the liquid in the flask would become clear, as if the virus had killed all the bacteria. However, with time, the flask would once again become cloudy as the bacterial population rebounded - now composed of virus-resistant bacteria. This happened even when all the bacteria in the flask were the clonal offspring of a single bacterium.

Not evolution. Evolution requires the change of the bacteria into something that it wasn't before...

That's what mutations do.

 

[NYBamaFan]

This hypothesis was tested by Luria and Delbruck in 1943.


That's what mutations do.

Wrong. You are wrong. I tried the human analogy so let me take it further. Let's say that AIDS becomes airborne. Most humans would die, but some humans would not. Some humans simply are not infected by the AIDS virus, and some show no symptoms when infected (ever). We do not know why, but it is true. Those humans that are left would begin repopulating the planet - but they would still be humans, no different than they are today. That is not evolution. That is natural selection. Evolution requires change. There is no change to our species other than the narrowing of our variation. The strong survive, the rest die out. AIDS is no longer a threat.

This is what is happening with the bacteria...

 

[cbi1972]

Wrong. You are wrong. I tried the human analogy so let me take it further. Let's say that AIDS becomes airborne. Most humans would die, but some humans would not. Some humans simply are not infected by the AIDS virus, and some show no symptoms when infected (ever). We do not know why, but it is true. Those humans that are left would begin repopulating the planet - but they would still be humans, no different than they are today. That is not evolution. That is natural selection. Evolution requires change. There is no change to our species other than the narrowing of our variation. The strong survive, the rest die out. AIDS is no longer a threat.

This is what is happening with the bacteria...

The hypothesis that all possible genetic variants existed at some sort of creationary zero-hour is not supported by the observed evidence. The experiment I linked shows that variation within a population is increased by genetic mutation. In your AIDS example, some humans have a favorable genetic mutation which confers immunity to the virus. You claim that this must be a pre-existing variant. The experiment on bacteria shows otherwise, as the entire population came from a single bacterium. If there were no mutation, then the whole bacteria culture should have been genetically identical. They weren't. At least one of them had a favorable mutation which caused it to fill the Petri dish with its virus-resistant offspring.

You say evolution requires change. Mutation is change. You say that no, they would be the same, no different than they are today. Sure, except for the fact that they are now all resistant to the deadly virus. Would I call this new AIDS-resistant strain of people non-human? No, because the difference there is slight, and doesn't meet the generally accepted criteria for speciation of highly complex organisms. However, they are different.

Speciation is a concept that is very hard to pin down. What, exactly, do you mean when you say that two organisms (or populations) are of the same species? What's the difference between a species and a variety or a breed? It isn't mere pedantry to ask this. It's a very real problem.

Horses (Equus caballus) and donkeys (Equus asinus) produce infertile offspring.

Wolves (Canis lupus) and domesticated dogs (Canis familiaris until 2004, now canis lupus familiaris) produce fertile offspring.

An Irish wolfhound and a chihuahua (same species, different "breed") would have serious difficulty mating, but their offspring would be a fertile hybrid.

Domestic sheep (Ovis aries) can no longer produce viable offspring with the wild species from which they descended (Ovis orientalis).

As I have argued in previous posts, the species label is an arbitrary one.

Speciation has been demonstrated in the laboratory by Rice and Salt (1988), producing populations of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) that within 35 generations, would no longer mate with each other, although offspring were viable if they were forcibly interbred.

Diane Dodd showed speciation in 1989, when she separated groups of fruit flies (Drosophila pseudoobscura), fed them different foods, and within eight (!) generations, found that they would not interbreed. This is laboratory induced allopatric speciation, the same type Darwin hypothesized for the various species of finches he found in the Galapagos Islands.

 

[NYBamaFan]

The hypothesis that all possible genetic variants existed at some sort of creationary zero-hour is not supported by the observed evidence. The experiment I linked shows that variation within a population is increased by genetic mutation. In your AIDS example, some humans have a favorable genetic mutation which confers immunity to the virus. You claim that this must be a pre-existing variant. The experiment on bacteria shows otherwise, as the entire population came from a single bacterium. If there were no mutation, then the whole bacteria culture should have been genetically identical. They weren't. At least one of them had a favorable mutation which caused it to fill the Petri dish with its virus-resistant offspring.

Sorry - you are wrong. I will not debate someone who sees genetic variations as mutations happening at the time of the event. The scientists did not conclude that the bacteria changed on the fly. They concluded that the bacteria that already had the genetic difference survived, then propogated. To infer anything else is to simply make things up. You are making this up in your own mind...

 

[cbi1972]

Sorry - you are wrong. I will not debate someone who sees genetic variations as mutations happening at the time of the event. The scientists did not conclude that the bacteria changed on the fly. They concluded that the bacteria that already had the genetic difference survived, then propogated. To infer anything else is to simply make things up. You are making this up in your own mind...

You seem to be confused about what I am claiming.

What do you mean 'the time of the event' ? What event are you talking about? What do you mean 'on the fly' ?

I am not making this up. I am basing my position on the scientific evidence.

Yes, the scientists concluded that the bacteria which already had the genetic difference survived, but you seem to be missing a critical point: The bacteria culture came from one single bacterium, therefore they should have been genetically identical, without variance. So how did any bacteria in that culture acquire that genetic difference?

Mutation.

Here is the timeline:
1) A single bacterium is placed in an environment in which it can reproduce
2) This bacterium reproduces
3) The descendants of the bacterium reproduce
4) Repeat step 3 until you have a culture of millions, maybe billions of bacteria
5) Due to mutations during reproduction, there is some genetic variance, some of which confers resistance to the bacterial virus. Without mutations, the entire culture would be genetically identical.
6) Bacterial virus is introduced to the bacteria culture
7) Bacterial virus kills almost all the bacteria, leaving those that have the virus-resistance mutation.
8) Surviving virus-resistant bacteria repopulate the culture as in steps 2-4.
9) Bacterial virus is introduced to the bacteria culture
10) Almost all of this new virus-resistant strain of bacteria survive

 

[NYBamaFan]

What do you mean 'the time of the event' ? What event are you talking about? What do you mean 'on the fly' ?

To answer the first question, I mean at the time that the antibiotic (or virus) was introduced. To answer the second question, I mean that there was no change in the bacteria that saved it at the time of the event. The only bacteria that survived were those that were resistant before the introduction of the virus.

So you propose that the variants which were produced from differences in gene sequences (not genetic material itself, but the arangement of that material) represents evolution. I suggest otherwise.

Now, if you could show that the single bacteria turned into a butterfly (example), I would be forced to agree, but that (or anything even close) has never been observed.

 

[cbi1972]

Moving discussion to this thread

 

[JackDaniels]

The paucity of transitional species and the sudden appearance of all major species(fully formed) in the Cambrian Period would seem to lead to a different model of the origin of the species than that proposed by Darwin.