Christian Evolutionist:

[Jose Fly]

Auto,

That would be preferable I agree, but then I would have to spend a lot more time writing...something I just don't have.

If the terminology isn't understood, then folks can certainly ask questions. There's no shortage of people here who can answer.

 

[DallasApple]

I think that one huge reason why we don't know what humans will evolve into is because we have no idea what aspects of the many things in our environment are causing us to adapt to them and therefore increase our odds of surviving. Auto gave an example of how some humans survived the bubonic plague and now we have some people immune to it. That increases their chances of survival if another plague happens and their offspring will survive while many others will not. We see that even today with contagious diseases. Some are more vulnerable and others have more defenses. Obviously the ones that survive pass on that ability to their offspring and they have a greater ability to survive and do the same.

In any case, we know that those who do survive the pollution of today will pass on the ability to their offspring and slowly we will adjust to higher levels without it devastating us. We see that with insects now. They become immune to the poisons we give them because the ones that survive were strong enough to reproduce and give their survival ability to their offspring. It may have been a miniscule ability in the beginning, just enough to survive with, but as it got passed down the line it grew in strength until you see offspring that are not effected in the least by the same thing that killed their ancestors quite effectively in the not so distant past. Thats my view of it as a layman anyway.

Thats very interesting.

Its funny..when my sister goes to Nicaragua she cant drink the water there.It makes her sick as a dog.But the natives can.Did they "evolve" to be able to do that?

Love

Dallas

 

[Jose Fly]

Dallas,

So IOW without these "evolving" genes..We would be clones?..Would that even include our sex? Like would we be all one gender?

If each time we reproduced and made a new individual and there were no mutations at all in either the egg or the sperm that formed the individual, there would be a lot less variability in our population.

But I don't think we would be "clones". The male would generate a sperm cell that has 1/2 a set of chromosomes (that without mutations are identical to himself) and the female does the same with an egg cell. But when the two fuse and form a zygote, different combinations of genes are going to be expressed in different patterns (kind of related to the "dominant" and "recessive" thing we all learned in middle school). So the outcome would depend on the parents.

IOW, male X reproduced with female A, they would produce offspring XA. But if male X then reproduced with female B, they would produce offspring XB.

But without any mutations at all, there would be significantly less genetic diversity, and consequently less evolution.

 

[DallasApple]

But without any mutations at all, there would be significantly less genetic diversity, and consequently less evolution.

So we need variation and mutations in order to evolve at a fast enough pace to keep up with changing enviroments?

IOW...we would die out if we didnt evolve fast enough?

Love

Dallas

 

[DallasApple]

Does the enviroment directly have a relation to how many mutations any one individual has?

Love

Dallas

 

[Autodidact]

Thats very interesting.

Its funny..when my sister goes to Nicaragua she cant drink the water there.It makes her sick as a dog.But the natives can.Did they "evolve" to be able to do that?

Love

Dallas

Yes, Dallas, exactly, and a great example. Because it's not like a Nicaraguan thought, "Wouldn't it be great if I could drink this water?" What happened was, people were getting sick, and some of them were dying. There was a mutation that made some people resistant to the bacteria in the water. They survived long enough to reproduce, so that mutation was passed on to their descendants, who live in Nicaragua today. That's exactly how it works.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So IOW without these "evolving" genes..We would be clones?..Would that even include our sex? Like would we be all one gender?

No - if you had zero mutations, you'd still have variability.

When the DNA of your mother and your father combine to form your DNA, it does so in a random way; some comes from your Mom, some comes from your Dad, and if you repeated the process, it would be different: you'd still get some from Mom and some from Dad, but different bits.

Where the mutations come is in the copying: your DNA is a sequence where some was copied from your mother and some from your father, but it wasn't perfect. What Jose's implying is that if you're like the average, when this copying from your mother and father happened in the nucleus of the fertilized egg that became you, about 175 of the copies from your mother (or father) weren't exactly perfect. There was some difference between the original and the copy.

Thats very interesting.

Its funny..when my sister goes to Nicaragua she cant drink the water there.It makes her sick as a dog.But the natives can.Did they "evolve" to be able to do that?

Not so much. I'd bet it's a matter of antibodies - if your sister had a child in raised her in Nicaragua, that child would probably develop a resistance to the microbes in the water and could drink it without getting sick - her white blood cells would know how to deal with any bacteria, protozoa and the like, and they wouldn't infect her like they would to someone who didn't have the antibodies (e.g. your sister).

Now, say your sister's child grew up, moved to the US and had kids of her own. Those kids wouldn't be able to drink Nicaragua water either, because they hadn't developed the antibodies for it.

IOW, there's no inheritance there, which is one of the key ingredients for it to be evolution.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, Dallas, exactly, and a great example. Because it's not like a Nicaraguan thought, "Wouldn't it be great if I could drink this water?" What happened was, people were getting sick, and some of them were dying. There was a mutation that made some people resistant to the bacteria in the water. They survived long enough to reproduce, so that mutation was passed on to their descendants, who live in Nicaragua today. That's exactly how it works.

I think we posted at the same time.

I don't think this is an example of mutation; I think it's more a matter of antibody response, which is something that anyone (with the possible exception of people with auto-immune disorders) has.

However, the fact that we evolved this capacity to develop resistance to disease through antibodies is certainly a very beneficial mutation and adaptation.

 

[Autodidact]

I should say I don't really know if resistance to Nicaraguan water-born microbes is inherited, so I don't know, but if it is, then my example stands as to illustrate how evolutionary change works.

 

[DallasApple]

Yes, Dallas, exactly, and a great example. Because it's not like a Nicaraguan thought, "Wouldn't it be great if I could drink this water?" What happened was, people were getting sick, and some of them were dying. There was a mutation that made some people resistant to the bacteria in the water. They survived long enough to reproduce, so that mutation was passed on to their descendants, who live in Nicaragua today. That's exactly how it works.

AWESOME!!

This would also explain the color of our skin and eyes would it not?

Love

Dallas

 

[DallasApple]

I think we posted at the same time.

I don't think this is an example of mutation; I think it's more a matter of antibody response, which is something that anyone (with the possible exception of people with auto-immune disorders) has.

However, the fact that we evolved this capacity to develop resistance to disease through antibodies is certainly a very beneficial mutation and adaptation.

I see..so they arent "born" with a variation in their genes to be able to tolerate the water..They aquire the ability after birth? but that is due to "all humans" having a gene that allows us to build up antibodies in response to being exposed to any given virus or bacteria?

IOW..if my sister was exposed long enough..She would "adapt" to the water and be able to drink it without becoming ill?

Love

Dallas

 

[painted wolf]

Why not move in? I dont know...why dont sharks eat lobsters.

um... Sharks do eat lobsters.
The Horn sharks, Angel sharks and Nurse sharks in particular feed on clams and lobsters.

wa:do

 

[Jose Fly]

Dallas,

So we need variation and mutations in order to evolve at a fast enough pace to keep up with changing enviroments? IOW...we would die out if we didnt evolve fast enough?

That's hard to say with any certainty.

Does the enviroment directly have a relation to how many mutations any one individual has?

It can. Exposure to radiation and certain chemicals can increase the amount of mutations, but the types of mutations produced by those things are typically dramatic and very detrimental.

 

[DallasApple]

Dallas,

That's hard to say with any certainty.

It can. Exposure to radiation and certain chemicals can increase the amount of mutations, but the types of mutations produced by those things are typically dramatic and very detrimental.

O.K..So why do we need to evolve?Or what makes us evolve in "positive" ways not negative if not the enviroment?

Or are we not evolving in positive ways?

Love

Dallas

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I should say I don't really know if resistance to Nicaraguan water-born microbes is inherited, so I don't know, but if it is, then my example stands as to illustrate how evolutionary change works.

Sure, if it's inherited. I don't know a whole lot about Nicaraguan water specifically, but I do know that often, disease resistance is a matter of just having the right antibodies.

I see..so they arent "born" with a variation in their genes to be able to tolerate the water..They aquire the ability after birth? but that is due to "all humans" having a gene that allows us to build up antibodies in response to being exposed to any given virus or bacteria?

Well, our development is genetic, but our genetic code interacts with itself in complex ways. It's not like there's some single "antibody" gene that you can flip on and off like a switch.

IOW..if my sister was exposed long enough..She would "adapt" to the water and be able to drink it without becoming ill?

I wouldn't try it, myself. I have a sneaking suspicion that the locals build up their antibodies and "adapt" to the water by getting sick, sometimes very sick, in childhood. Water-borne illnesses still kill a lot of people in areas with bad water, especially children.

 

[Autodidact]

IMO, before folks spend a lot of time trying to go over vague evolutionary scenarios, it might be more productive to first cover the basics.

Heneni, it's become fairly obvious that you're a little confused over what "evolution" means in a scientific sense. From a population biology standpoint, evolution is simply a change in allele frequencies over time. "Allele" refers to a form of a gene. IOW, when a population goes from having say 10% frequency of one allele for a gene to a 60% frequency, that population has "evolved".

Another thing you need to understand is how variability arises in populations. Variations are produced via changes in the genomes of the individuals who make up the population. These variations arise via mutations. Mutations are common and occur with each replication event. For example, it's been estimated that every human is born with ~175 mutations. The locations and types of these mutations are largely random, which means that each individual is unique.

So if each time an organism reproduces it generates a new individual with a suite of mutations, and we have a population that is made up of individuals that are reproducing, we end up with a population that is continuously generating variability and unique individuals.

Before we move on, does that make sense?

I will now attempt to translate this helpful post, and Jose can correct me if I'm wrong:

Evolution means that a group of organisms, which we call a "species" changes over time. No individual ever changes, but the group as a whole shifts as new individuals are borne that are slightly different from their predecessors. The characteristics are controlled by genes. The genes have different forms that create slightly different variations in size, color, or other characteristics. When one form of a gene comes to predominate, rather than another, we say that the species has evolved.

As we know, babies are never exact copies of their parents. They differ from their parents and each other just a tiny bit, just as you are a bit different from your parents and your brothers and sisters. Part of the reason for this is that when genes are copied, there are little copying "mistakes," which we call mutations.[Jose left out differences due to sexual reproduction mixing up combinations of genes.] The result is that while all members of a species are very similar, there are also little variations and changes in the population of the species as a whole.

Following Jose so far?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

O.K..So why do we need to evolve?Or what makes us evolve in "positive" ways not negative if not the enviroment?

Nothing. All evolution is is adaptation to the immediate environment.

Or are we not evolving in positive ways?

Sure we are, but only inasmuch as it helps us in our immediate environment.

Of course, it depends what you mean by "positive".

 

[Autodidact]

I see..so they arent "born" with a variation in their genes to be able to tolerate the water..They aquire the ability after birth? but that is due to "all humans" having a gene that allows us to build up antibodies in response to being exposed to any given virus or bacteria?

IOW..if my sister was exposed long enough..She would "adapt" to the water and be able to drink it without becoming ill?

Love

Dallas

We're all born with this really cool ability to develop resistance to disease. It's incredibly complicated and absolutely fascinating, and deserving of a thread in itself.

She would, but she'd probably have to get sick at least once first. Then after that she would have developed the resisitance.

 

[Autodidact]

Does the enviroment directly have a relation to how many mutations any one individual has?

Love

Dallas

Not much. Most mutations happen naturally as a result of copying errors when DNA is copied. A few are caused by radiation etc.

 

[DallasApple]

I wouldn't try it, myself. I have a sneaking suspicion that the locals build up their antibodies and "adapt" to the water by getting sick, sometimes very sick, in childhood. Water-borne illnesses still kill a lot of people in areas with bad water, especially children.

Well then its too bad they cant evolve a "bad water tolerance" gene and be born protected.

But then again..its too bad we all cant all evolve and be resistant to the ever changing deadly virusus and bacterias and diseases such as cancer.

So IOW my example has nothingto do with evolving.

Oh well..sorry for the rabbit trail..

Love

Dallas