Mutations cannot be the mechanism of Evolution.

The Human Genome Project continues to map out the human genome and comes up with more and more information everyday. As many of you know Environmental Factors such as cigarette smoke and UV Rays as well as other carcinogens and cytotoxic compounds ensure that our DNA will be damaged. However, The Human Genome Project has discovered that our DNA and the DNA of all the other creatures of this planet possess the ability to repair themselves. Well you may ask how is my DNA damaged? Environmental Factors such as cigarette smoke and UV Rays as well as other carcinogens and cytotoxic compounds ensure that our DNA will be damaged.

The great thing is that most of these mutations are corrected by our very own DNA. This function is collectively called DNA Repair, I know it�s not very colorful but that�s what it is called. In humans alone we have 130 identified genes that perform this process possibly more. Anyways So I guess I could go into how life cannot exists without these repair mechanisms and that even the most simple life forms need them to survive meaning that the first life form would need these complex repair genes but I will save that for latter.

The point I am making today is simple DNA repair systems work hard everyday to repair changes that occur daily in the billions of nucleotide bases that make up plants, people and animals. However it is these very changes that evolution depends upon.

Read all about the damaging effects of Mutations

I'd say it isn't perfect since people do get cancer and they do die.

These DNA repair systems function to repair the DNA you have.

If you are born with a different DNA then your parent(a mutation of their DNA, wich is normal due to you being born from a DNA mix of both your parents) the DNA Repair functions will fix that DNA, but it won't go and change your DNA to reflect that of one of your parents.

Evolution trough mutations happens trough a subject being born with a mutated genome compared to its parents. If the new design proves to be better or equal to the rest, it will be able to reproduce.

When the new gene setup is mutated in a way that is not benificial to the subject in life, by deformations and malfunctions that cause it to die, have trouble feeding, reproducing or moving, the subject with these genes is likely not able to reproduce.

Thats how evolution trough mutation happens.

Mutation like your talking about would be an induced mutation of the existing genome in a subject instead of the mix of genomes of 2 parents to create a new living organisme with resemblances to the parents but yet a different gene set overal.

Originally posted by MrJingles
I'd say it isn't perfect since people do get cancer and they do die.

Cancer is a cell mutating discease, not an overal gene changing one.

No it isn't perfect as outlined by the last article that I posted the mechanisms wear out over time and are not able to keep up but, like you said people do have genes that mutate and cause cancer. Are these the mutations needed for evolution?

Too many mutations can kill an organism not help it.

Thematrix,

One flaw with the assumption you made above is that there has never been a case of a beneficial mutation.

Originally posted by BlackJackal
Thematrix,

One flaw with the assumption you made above is that there has never been a case of a beneficial mutation.

You don't seem to understand what I'm saying.

Every being is born with a mutation of his parents genomes. The mix of the parents genes by itself is a mutation.

A mix is an alteration of the genome to reflect parts of both parents genome. A mix is a change so that the offspring reflects the genome from both parents, without changing the genome that comes from the parents, you would get a clone of 1 of the parents instead of an offspring.

How is cloning done: One method is by extracting all genetic material out of the egg sack and injecting it with the genetic material of the subject that will be cloned.

How is something born: Eggsack with mothers DNA gets furtilized by the male sperm, DNA mixes and an offspring is born with characteristics of both parents, but yet a unique person.

Mutation : An alteration or change, as in nature, form, or quality.

Originally posted by BlackJackal
Thematrix,

One flaw with the assumption you made above is that there has never been a case of a beneficial mutation.

oh really? mutations seem to be beneficial to the HIV virus these mutated strains even beat all the meds that are thrown at it eventaully

noctu,

The HIV virus has not mutated. The HIV virus is becoming tolerant of the drugs the same way that you and I would become tollerent of a poison if we were administered it daily for a long while.

Something for you to read on Beneficial Mutations.

www.icr.org...

[Edited on 27-5-2004 by BlackJackal]

A virus mutates because when you administer a drug you kill most if not all of the virus and leave only the ones that are resistant to the drug. These then replicate and pass on the resistant traits they have to their offspring.

Originally posted by BlackJackal
The HIV virus has not mutated. The HIV virus is becoming tolerant of the drugs the same way that you and I would become tollerent of a poison if we were administered it daily for a long while.

Not really BJ, the virus' immunity is genetic. Whereas if I was to drink a lot of alcohol and build up a high tolerance. Any child of mine would not instantly have that high tolerance. Whereas the virus' immunity is passed on from generation to generation.

Virus "immunity" only exists because white blood cells identify and remember a virus succesfully.This information is not passed on from generation to another.the blood cells of the child must identify it again.
Some virus often have an antigen whose shape changes frequently,the blood cells have a hard time with these ones as they have to identify it each time.

Ok, this was not the purpose of this post however, I will address it since it has been brought up. Kano you are right about your analogy but that is because we reproduce sexuallly and viruses and bacteria reproduce asexual (meaning they make exact copies of themselves)

We have a couple of different things on the table right now so let me start by addressing HIV. HIV is a virus and to treat a Virus you need an antiviral drug. Currently these medicines are really just hit and miss since they are very new and the fact of how viruses act.

Part of the problem has to do with the way viruses cause infections. These tiny agents of disease are not considered living things, because they cannot reproduce on their own. They must invade the cells of other living things and take over the cells' machinery to make more copies of themselves. Once inside their hosts' cells, viruses reproduce wildly, spread through the body and cause illness. Some illnesses caused by viruses come and go -- common colds, flu, measles, mumps, and chicken pox, for example. Others, such as cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus, linger in the body for life.

Developing antiviral medicines has been difficult, because most drugs that kill viruses also damage the host's cells, where the viruses hide. However, since the 1980s, when the virus that causes AIDS began to receive attention, medical researchers have focused on the problem of treating viral infections, and encouraging progress has been made.

Rather than killing the viruses, antiviral drugs block steps in the process through which viruses reproduce. Some may also stimulate the immune system so that the body can fight the viruses itself.

The way that viruses gain immunity is that they either had the ability previously or by Aquiring a gene encoding of an altered protein or an enzyme from other viruses, even from those of a different species.

Bacteria also gain immunity this way

How Bacteria Gain Immunity and not get Kicked off the Island!

Heh, I know that mutations can't make it from molecules to man either but not a single evolutionist has ever been convinced otherwise.

They always have the highly convincing:

Ahhhaaaaaaa but if you have long enough !!!!!

If an evolutionist gives in to the idea that life could not have arisen by chance they are accepting that there is a God.

And we can't allow that now can we ? I mean, if a God exists then he might have rules... and if God makes rules then that means we ain't in charge (shock horror) and God might be angry with us for breaking the rules.

And if you believe in God and evolution ? Man what a waste of time...

Originally posted by BlackJackal
The HIV virus has not mutated.

You know, that's NOT what the scientists who study the disease say. There are a number of different strains that have evolved from the original one -- you can, in fact, identify what area of the world the virus was picked up in by the strain.

The HIV virus is becoming tolerant of the drugs the same way that you and I would become tollerent of a poison if we were administered it daily for a long while.

Oy.

If you take arsenic daily for years you will eventually have damage from the arsenic in your system and will die earlier. Check history on this... arsenic was a popular ingredient in the centuries past and it killed a lot of folks. Nor is the HIV virus becoming tolerant.

Instead of looking at religious sites, let me refer you to Scirus, the science paper search engine:

Here's a paper on HIV virus mutations called "Negative effect of the M184V mutation in HIV-1 reverse transcriptase on initiation of viral DNA synthesis "
www.sciencedirect.com... di=7165&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a7645a52fc2f452cdf9e05ba4e40198e

And another on a different mutation:
membership.acs.org...

And a third mutation:
www.sciencedirect.com... di=6104&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=35905ff97f4b9b0545f06b36274aba7e

Or how about the 2,279 published reports from the Journal of the American Medical Association about HIV and mutation and humans:
jama.ama-assn.org...


...and you're arguing that these scientists -- geneticists, virologists, cellular biologists, physicians, immunologists -- ALL of them don't know what a mutation is and can't identify one when they see it? And the proof is in what a religious site (run by someone who invented a PhD and a university so he could call himself a doctor) says?

Really?????



And as to the "mutations in humans" bit, I'll just present a selection of the papers I found:

Human genetic mutations causing people to become more resistant to HIV:
www.eurekalert.org...

Gene mutation risk for children of HIV positive mothers:
www.aegis.com...

(1999) NIAID Scientists Discover HIV Disease-Slowing Mutation in Humans
www.thebody.org...


Scirus showed a total of 46,634 websites and journal articles by reputable scientists on the subject of mutation and HIV. These are folks who know an allele from an alosaurus and can identify chromosomes and genes under the microscope. It includes people like my friend who works on protein sequencing mathematical modeling for the human genome.
www.scirus.com...


I can post more references, if you like.


I'm sure that the religious sites are well-intentioned and I'm equally sure that they are presenting from a very biased point of view that sticks its head in the sand and pretends like a lot of those nearly 50,000 documents just don't exist.

And as a P.S. on strains (mutations) of HIV, there's also an article showing that it's possible to become infected with more than one strain:
www.nih.gov...


(I'll quit here, but there's a LOT of research on this... hard, "hold it in your hands, look at it under the microscope, duplicate the results" type research. As opposed to "my holy book says this is impossible. Period. No arguments" types of "proof.")

If we can breed ~300 new breeds of cattle from the 6 that existed in 1620 when anglos came to the U.S., why cannot God?

Histomes, the 'data-checkers' of DNA, do catch the worst errors. But just like with 'spell-check' on your computer, some errors go undetected. Most mutations ARE harmful and result in death (expressed as misscarriage/neonate mortality).

Because of variations in DNA (between me and you, for example), there is already variation in the gene pool. Where did this variation come from? The original human population was tiny. Just 100 years ago, the earth only had 1 billion people. Now it has six. When Christ was born, there were only 100 million humans on the planet. So why aren't all of us just copies of the first humans? Why doesn't every man look like Adam and every woman look like Eve? If you don't believe in Genesis, there was still an original gene pool that was tiny compared with today. Where did all the variation come from?

Mutation is only one cause of variation in a population. The large number of ways DNA can re-combine in each generation gives some variation. It is in a species' "interest" to have variation, so that the population can survive threats like disease. If every individual is slightly different from his brothers, then maybe they won't all die from the same disease. The one who survives will pass his DNA on to the next generation. That next generation will have better resistance to disease.

By virtue of being alive, you know that you come from a long line of survivors.

What causes mutation? Cosmic radiation is a leader. It is natural, and helps keep variability in the gene pool. The other major cause is transcription errors during cell division. Chemical and other biohazards are new industrial threats that didn't exist for most of history.

The vast majority of mutations are detrimental. A few are useful, though. Blue eyes are very slightly less succeptible to snow blindness. And guess what? northern Europeans frequently have blue eyes. High melatonin (dark skin) has a lower risk of skin cancer, which is a bigger problem in the tropics.... Not that Euros haven't migrated there and lived there for generations. They just tend toward skin cancer. The effect of a subtle mutation like skin color or eye color is tiny, but it does decrease slightly your chance of living to produce another generation of children.


Again, if man Can create new species of dogs, cats, cattle, why can't God. Who designed the DNA we play with?

There are benefical mutations. A mutation in the CCR5-Delta gene gives resistance against HIV-1. (source).

The Apo-AIM mutation is beneficial (source), because the people that have it have a smaller chance of arteriosclerosis.

I am again going to refer to Lenski. E. Coli in an environment with only glucose are able to use glucose better. I see this as a beneficial adaption, because they are better adapted to their environment (source).

More examples can be found here and here.

Even Answers in Genesis, a well-known creationist group, think creationists should not use this argument (source):

�There are no beneficial mutations.� This is not true, since some changes do confer an advantage in some situations.

Originally posted by TenPin
And we can't allow that now can we ? I mean, if a God exists then he might have rules... and if God makes rules then that means we ain't in charge (shock horror) and God might be angry with us for breaking the rules.

The best response to that is probably a quote by our good friend Galileo Galilei:
I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use.

Or perhaps Bill Hicks' routine about the 'Prankster God', but Galileo is classier.

[Edited on 28-5-2004 by Kano]

As Einstein said, Dont tell God what to do