Evolution...not what you think.

[Mitch Bass]

Well maybe evolution is what you think. However, most of the people I have come across who talk about evolution speak of the idea the what they consider to be the driving force behind evolution. Although they have different names for the force, ultimately it comes down to genetic mutuation. If you have been thinking that mutation is the cause behind all but a small fraction of evolution than the name for this post I have created is accurate for whoever is reading the words I am now writing. Evolution is not what you think if you think genetic mutation is the reason for the existence of the massive evolutinary phenomenon.

 

The only time genetic mutation had a huge impact was during the first few billion years of our planets existence. Because the effects of genetic mutation are as rare as they are now, it took a few billion years for genetic mutation to ultimately create what is now known as a self replicating organism.

 

At first a single organism would make copies of it self. The only evoution that took place was as a result of genetic mutuation. At some point in the history of life, a new way of animal manifestation came to be. This new source of creation would be the joining together of two sepearte organisms. When two animals (a male and a female?) come together to create offspring, the offspring is a result of the genetic material irth of from two seperate animals resulting in the birth of a being that will be a result of the genetic combination by two different animals. Animals that were constructed by the combination that would do well had the chance to pass on their own genetic material,

 

Evolution has very little to do with the phenomenon of genetic mutation. Evolution is a result of the fact that reproduction is a process that creates alteration of genetic combinations.

 

 

[Unity+]

Evolution has very little to do with the phenomenon of genetic mutation. Evolution is a result of the fact that reproduction is a process that creates alteration of genetic combinations.

And these alterations are caused by genetic mutations.

[CharonY]

That OP is a bit of a straw man, as evolution is not clearly driven by mutations alone. Nor is it mainly driven by recombination (quite obviously, considering the vast abundance of asexually reproducing organisms). Both are but aspects of the larger pictures. It should be repeated that evolution is in essence the change of allele frequency in a population. Mutations and recombination affect the available diversity, selection and stochastic events change the frequency.

 

As such obviously mutations are still will continue to be an important aspect.

[Mitch Bass]

And these alterations are caused by genetic mutations.

 

The alterations of gene combinations is not a an effect of mutation anymore than the alteration of the combination of different people on an baseball team which could cause the team to do better or worse is an effect of mutation.

Each member of a baseball team will have an effect on the winning or lossing, the success or failure. If the combination of genes that make an animal create a body that is effective, some of those genes will be passed on.

 

If two parents have children that are different and one is so smart that he becomes the President of a college and the other is so unintelligent that he ends up living in a group home, do you think this is a result of genetic mutation or a different comination of genes that have been passed on by the parents?

That OP is a bit of a straw man, as evolution is not clearly driven by mutations alone

I wrote the exact opposite of what you are saying I wrote. I am not sure what you mean when you refer to me as a straw man but I can only think of the straw man from the wizard of OZ who had no brain. And thats fine if thats how you perceive me. But the quote you wrote has you saying that evolution is not clearly driven by mutation alone. I am saying that not only is it not clearly driven by mutation alone but it is rarely driven by mutation at all. What I was indicatiing was that there are many people who have no understanding of how little genetic material, the DNA themselves, actually are altered, mutated or physcally change. So, please if you will riddle me this, CharonY when asexual creation occurs, are the offspring exact dupicates of the birth giver? If not is it because of mutated genetics or the reaity that of dominant and recessive genes which cause a difference in gene combination that makes the child from that which made the one who made the child?

[John Cuthber]

 

. I am not sure what you mean when you refer to me as a straw man

Look it up.

[Ophiolite]

Mitch, you may just wish to recall that Darwin referred to the process of natural selection. Evolution is a process of natural selection. (There are some other influences, such as sexual selection and genetic drift, but natural selection is at the heart of the process.)

 

Darwin did not know about mutations and struggled to identify what could fuel evolution other than the initial diversity present in a population. Clearly this was not enough and so he even dabbled with Lamark's ideas about acquired characteristics.

 

So, it is my impression that people who know anything about evolution attribute it, in simplified terms, to natural selection acting upon normal population variations, where the latter are augmented by occasional mutations.

 

it took a few billion years for genetic mutation to ultimately create what is now known as a self replicating organism.

No. Wrong. Completely wrong. Single cells are self replicating organisms. It did not take a few billion years for these to appear. Why do you think it did?

 

I am saying that not only is it not clearly driven by mutation alone but it is rarely driven by mutation at all.

Do you feel that the evolution of whales from land animals was largely due to the mixing of genes in sexual reproduction and almost not at all due to mutations?

[delboy]

Evolution has very little to do with the phenomenon of genetic mutation. Evolution is a result of the fact that reproduction is a process that creates alteration of genetic combinations.

 

You seem to be suggesting that evolution happens as a result of the recombination of genes in sexual reproduction. True this does create differences in the offspring but it limited to the variation within the gene pool of that species, and this would not be enough to create a new species. This requires greater variation which can only happen by genetic mutation.

 

What is the source(s) for your theory. You mentioned Dawkin's books in another thread. I have read The Selfish Gene and nowhere in there did it suggest what you seem to be suggesting.

[CharonY]

Just in case that there was a misunderstanding, a straw man argument is essentially building up an argument that no one made and then tearing it down.

As has been mentioned, no one is arguing that evolution is driven by mutation alone (this is the straw man), and therefore trying to refute this point is moot. As already mentioned mutations are a crucial element (but obviously Darwin was not aware of details, but then there was quite some progress since his days). Also, many, if not most organisms are haploid, so dominance plays basically no role here. Take prokaryotes, for example. Important variations arise by mutations and some of them have the ability to increase their mutations rate once being severely stressed.

They do engage in horizontal gene transfer but obviously that accelerates spread of genes but does not create allelic variations per se. The whole argument is based on limited understanding (which is fine) but I recommend reading up a bit more before trying to propose a model that flies in the face of current knowledge. The main threads are there to discuss mainstream science, which generally requires a bit understanding of the same (or willingness to learn about it).

[Mitch Bass]

Just in case that there was a misunderstanding, a straw man argument is essentially building up an argument that no one made and then tearing it down.

 

I only started this post becase of the rampant amount of thinking that mutation is a major force behind evolution. So let me explain to you the a metaphor that comes out of my research in evolution at the genetic level. I hope this is not a problem but I just used the same metaphor with someoen who was doing exactly what you said no one does. Someone was building up an arguement that made mutation something more than a microscopic factor in terms of evolution. There are 26 letters in the alphabet. Without the mutation of a single letter, will it ever limit the combination of letters which lead to the combination of words which lead to what could become better and better papers, articles, magazines essays, theories. The arguement You said a straw man was building up that no one made is not the case. The point of this post is to clear up a common misconception that mutation is this important factor in evolution. Mutation is a about ten thousand more times to cause an animal to have a negative effect than a positive efffect. Keep in mind that cartoons such as the X-men which are known to be stroies about mutation are thought by people to be based on an exaggeration of how evolution works. Whatever a straw man means I doubt it is associated with an expert on a subject that can clarify that a commonly held idea about a major concept is horribly flawed. The theory of evolution is so critical that I wanted to clear up the reality behind the actual mechanics of evolution. There are three primary colors. How many varieties of these three do you think there could be that could create orginal and greater artwork until at least the end of the Earths existence. letters do not need to be mutated yet books and stories and online chats will continue to evolve. I just want people who are in the dark about the exact science of genetics to understand once again that mutations are ten thousand times more likely to bad than good.

Mitch, you may just wish to recall that Darwin referred to the process of natural selection. Evolution is a process of natural selection. (There are some other influences, such as sexual selection and genetic drift, but natural selection is at the heart of the process.)

 

Darwin did not know about mutations and struggled to identify what could fuel evolution other than the initial diversity present in a population. Clearly this was not enough and so he even dabbled with Lamark's ideas about acquired characteristics.

 

So, it is my impression that people who know anything about evolution attribute it, in simplified terms, to natural selection acting upon normal population variations, where the latter are augmented by occasional mutations.

 

No. Wrong. Completely wrong. Single cells are self replicating organisms. It did not take a few billion years for these to appear. Why do you think it did?

 

So you wrote:

 

 

No. Wrong. Completely wrong. Single cells are self replicating organisms. It did not take a few billion years for these to appear. Why do you think it did?

 

So you are saying when the Earth first came to be as a planet, as it orinally was without any plant or animal life, just elements in the form of a large object orbiting the Sun, within less than two billion years self repicating organism were known to exist?

 

You also wrote :Mitch, you may just wish to recall that Darwin referred to the process of natural selection. Evolution is a process of natural selection. (There are some other influences, such as sexual selection and genetic drift, but natural selection is at the heart of the process.)

 

I have so much say about these words and so little time that I will not start until i have time go over what you are suggesting by this and the traffic jam thought it is causing in my brain. I have to let this go for now. I am looking forward to asking you questions about what you are saying that might make it so that what you are writing makes complete sense and does not in actuality have the flaws that my first response idicates to me they have.. The most important thing though is for any contradiction of ideas and thoughts about who is right and who wrong , well I just hope you are like me and that if what I am saying is show to be wrong am nothing but appreciative. Good luck in all ways and I will be retrurning soon.

 

Darwin did not know about mutations and struggled to identify what could fuel evolution other than the initial diversity present in a population. Clearly this was not enough and so he even dabbled with Lamark's ideas about acquired characteristics.

So, it is my impression that people who know anything about evolution attribute it, in simplified terms, to natural selection acting upon normal population variations, where the latter are augmented by occasional mutations.

[chadn737]

Recombination is not considered an evolutionary force for a very simple reason: it doesn't change allele frequencies in and of itself. Under Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium, recombination is more or less assumed with the requirement of random mating. If the conditions of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium are met within a population, or at least approximately so, then there will be little to no change in allele frequencies. In other words, very little evolution going on, regardless of recombination. We can also view it another way. In inbred populations that are largely homozygous, the molecular process of recombination still occurs, but it has very little effect because you are creating the same combination every time by recombining homozygous genes.

 

In contrast, mutation immediately changes the allele frequency and is the original source of genetic variation in a population. That is why mutation is considered an evolutionary force, while recombination is not.

Edited May 27, 2014 by chadn737

[CharonY]

 

Someone was building up an arguement that made mutation something more than a microscopic factor in terms of evolution. There are 26 letters in the alphabet. Without the mutation of a single letter, will it ever limit the combination of letters which lead to the combination of words which lead to what could become better and better papers, articles, magazines essays, theories. The arguement You said a straw man was building up that no one made is not the case. The point of this post is to clear up a common misconception that mutation is this important factor in evolution. Mutation is a about ten thousand more times to cause an animal to have a negative effect than a positive efffect.

 

I am not sure who the someone is, but this here is a science forum and unless that someone has published something pertaining to this his/her opinion or the depiction of in a movie is immaterial. If you really want to use the analogy with the alphabet, the mutation create new words. Recombinations just changes the order of existing words. If you eliminate mutation from this we are stuck with a limited vocabulary. Just to make it clear, assuming that mutation only plays a minor role in evolution directly contradicts existing knowledge. It is strange that you want to replace one misconception with another.

Also:

-especially in animals, plants or other organisms with larger genomes mutations are more likely to be neutral rather than under positive or negative selection

-life started about 3.6 billion years ago so roughly a billion after Earth was formed

 

Let us flip things around. The importance of mutations for evolution is well established in a vast body of literature. Do you have anything (e.g. literature) to provide except random thoughts that provide evidence to the contrary? If not I would advise you to actually take a look at the literature and, if something is unclear, ask question to improve your knowledge.

Edited May 27, 2014 by CharonY

[chadn737]

There are 26 letters in the alphabet. Without the mutation of a single letter, will it ever limit the combination of letters which lead to the combination of words which lead to what could become better and better papers, articles, magazines essays, theories.

 

There are 4 "letters" in the DNA alphabet. Mutations do not create a 5th "letter". It duplicates letters, deletes letters, converts letters. If you start with only one of each of the 26 letters of the alphabet you will never be able to write a sentence or word that requires more than one of the same letter. Words like "hello" can only be written by duplicating the letter "L". Such duplications would be considered a "mutation" if we want to continue with this analogy.

[Ophiolite]

So you are saying when the Earth first came to be as a planet, as it orinally was without any plant or animal life, just elements in the form of a large object orbiting the Sun, within less than two billion years self repicating organism were known to exist?

Absolutely. The Earth is 4.54 billion years old. There is geochemical evidence for life 3.8 billion years ago and generally accepted fossil evidence from 3.5 billion years ago. It is quite likely that by two billion years after the planet's formation, eukaryotes had evolved.

 

I have so much say about these words and so little time that I will not start until i have time go over what you are suggesting by this and the traffic jam thought it is causing in my brain

I await your response with interest.