buckshot24: All you need to do is look at what is causing the benefit. There was a mutation in Lenski's experiment where the propulsion mechanism of the E. Coli simply didn't exist. The "bugs" who had this mutation didn't waste any energy on producing the flagellum. The reason this was a benefit is that the medium the "bugs" were in was constantly vibrated so the food sources would get to the E. Coli that didn't have a way to swim. This is clearly a beneficial mutation but obviously not something that you could extrapolate out into the formation of new biological functions.
M: It sounds like what you are saying here is that a bacterium that has developed a propulsion mechanism, in an environment where the energy required to run that mechanism is not necessary, might revert to a more primitive state, lose the genes that are involved in producing the propulsion mechanism. One would not, I think, call that an extrapolation to new biological functions, but a reversion to a more primitive state. If an organism has food delivered to it, it doesn't benefit from mutations that would help it acquire it's own food. You wouldn't expect evolution to go in that direction where an organism is perfectly adapted to its environment. Being a bacterium is a very successful form of life.
b: You need more than benefits to make a microbe turn into man. It doesn't matter how many generations you wait.
M: Man is according to evolution, just one of billions of possibilities that evolution could have taken. Man was never evolution's intention. But the accumulation of genetic changes and the preservation of some of them into future generations into changing niches the environment provides means that organisms differentiate. Tiny changes over huge spans of time causes massive changes. The time involved is humanly incomprehensible.
b: Lets say there is a truly beneficial mutation that is extremely rare 1 in 10^20 organisms any other mutation on that same chromosome comes along for the ride.
M: That's OK. Only genes that express are selected for or against. An organism that carries a recessive fatal gene and a dominant beneficial gene or is homozygous for that gene will have positive adaptability regardless of the negative genes it carries.
b: That isn't true. Look at humans, mutations are accumulating and selection can't keep up. You also need to look at H1N1 flu virus that has undergone multiple extinction events over the last 100 years. It comes back because some pocket of the dormant virus gets exposed and reintroduced. They go extinct because of genetic meltdown because detrimental mutations build up.
M: M: I am speaking of genes that express. A fatal gene that pairs with a fatal gene means the organism can't survive to bread and those genes are eliminated from the gene pool with tends to eliminate them or keep them very rare, while a positive gene that expresses will tend to be preserved and replace less adaptive alternative forms of that gene. Selection always keeps up. We can survive with lots of genetic defects because we have evolved means to survive with them, taking care of each other for example. We may also develop means to correct our genetic defects.
M: It sounds like what you are saying here is that a bacterium that has developed a propulsion mechanism, in an environment where the energy required to run that mechanism is not necessary, might revert to a more primitive state, lose the genes that are involved in producing the propulsion mechanism. One would not, I think, call that an extrapolation to new biological functions, but a reversion to a more primitive state. If an organism has food delivered to it, it doesn't benefit from mutations that would help it acquire it's own food. You wouldn't expect evolution to go in that direction where an organism is perfectly adapted to its environment. Being a bacterium is a very successful form of life.
b: You need more than benefits to make a microbe turn into man. It doesn't matter how many generations you wait.
M: Man is according to evolution, just one of billions of possibilities that evolution could have taken. Man was never evolution's intention. But the accumulation of genetic changes and the preservation of some of them into future generations into changing niches the environment provides means that organisms differentiate. Tiny changes over huge spans of time causes massive changes. The time involved is humanly incomprehensible.
b: Lets say there is a truly beneficial mutation that is extremely rare 1 in 10^20 organisms any other mutation on that same chromosome comes along for the ride.
M: That's OK. Only genes that express are selected for or against. An organism that carries a recessive fatal gene and a dominant beneficial gene or is homozygous for that gene will have positive adaptability regardless of the negative genes it carries.
b: That isn't true. Look at humans, mutations are accumulating and selection can't keep up. You also need to look at H1N1 flu virus that has undergone multiple extinction events over the last 100 years. It comes back because some pocket of the dormant virus gets exposed and reintroduced. They go extinct because of genetic meltdown because detrimental mutations build up.
M: M: I am speaking of genes that express. A fatal gene that pairs with a fatal gene means the organism can't survive to bread and those genes are eliminated from the gene pool with tends to eliminate them or keep them very rare, while a positive gene that expresses will tend to be preserved and replace less adaptive alternative forms of that gene. Selection always keeps up. We can survive with lots of genetic defects because we have evolved means to survive with them, taking care of each other for example. We may also develop means to correct our genetic defects.
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