Beneficial mutations reveal that biological systems were not fully developed. They also reveal that a creator is not required for change to occur. \


And natural selection is self evident so when one accepts that beneficial mutations occur and natural selection occurs, then they essentiall accept that evolution occurs.

The evidence for evolution is lacking? lol. It was overwhelmingly strong a century ago, and has been proven stronger every day since.

You have repeatedly stated that you accept that beneficial mutations occur. It is common knowledge that mutations result in new genes and I explained how in very simple terms. So you're wrong.
(being wrong is not very good because then you end up being wrong)

I see you chose only the examples that do not refute your argument. How surprising.

Therefore, any evidence that shows how new useful genes are created simply "doesn't count" because they can't accept the idea that their beliefs are wrong.

Duplications cause "junk DNA". Dormant unused inactive genes. Humans have 32000 active useful non-viral genes, where did these come from?

God created organisms with the ability to evolve, I have no problem with that...

I do have a problem with evolutionists saying that evolution is the only possible way that modern life-forms exist, when molecular biology points to devolution rather than evolution.

Reduced complexity, extinctions, and rapid micro-evolution to fill the ecological gaps left behind from extinctions is what ecological observations and molecular biology are indicating.

There are also honest intelligent and well educated evolutionists that became creationists when looking at the evidence.

Your comment seems to imply that ALL mutations involve new genes. I know you can't mean that but that is what you seem to be saying.
Beneficial mutations observed in nature involve de-activated genes, or missing genes or inactive genes. A mutation is a distortion in the genome not previously there, it does not have to involve gene insertions or duplications.

I somewhat agree. I feel that the strongest evidence for evolution lays in the field of genetics. And I feel that it is accessible, you can purchase any article you want from pubmed for example, but it can be dry, complicated, and require much study to understand.

There are many intelligent and honest christian creationists who are interested in truth, they have just only had access to a limited subset of the relevant facts.

Or perhaps its the incentive to honestly and objectively understand their god's creation that they lack.

Do you view these duplications as redundant, unchanging, nearly useless segments of DNA?
Personally, I see them as excess genetic material, perfect for providing the tools for future mutations. You seem to be asking for a mutation that both provides new DNA and provides a benefit - I'm no evolutionary biologist but it seems reasonable to me to think that it would be more likely that one mutation would provide increased genetic material and further mutations result in changes in that material.

Reduced complexity hey? Lets compare this with what we see in the fossil record.
In the oldest (deepest) layers we have simple prokaryotic cells. After they 'reduced in complexity' they were followed by complex (eukaryotic) cells. After those cells lost complexity they resulted in simple multicellular animals. As more and more complexity was reduced we see the rise of shell-bearing animals, then fish, then amphibians, then reptiles, then mammals like the highly complex humans we have today. It would seem that according to your claim, the more reduced complexity there is, the more complex that creatures become.
...doesn't really make sense does it.

I believe you guys still seem to be missing each other wrt what it means to 'add a new gene'.


Consider this sentence:

>> I like the cat.

I can 'add a new word' to the sentence like this:

>> I like the red cat.

Or I can 'add a new word' to the lexicon like this:

>> I like the yat.

Yat is a 'new word'. This hasn't increased the length of this sentence, but it is a new word.

Edit: He made the point I was trying to make more concisely: "but it seems reasonable to me to think that it would be more likely that one mutation would provide increased genetic material and further mutations result in changes in that material."

1) What theoretical process would activate those duplicated genes into new genes with new functions?
2) Is this observed anywhere in nature?

the average organism, even the most naturally selected currently "fit" ones, are more full of damaged mutations than beneficial mutations? Because seriously when you look into genome sequencing you see that damaging mutations occur far too rapidly for a population to naturally DE-select the mutations out of population.

ie Why is evolution reversing suddenly as soon as molecular biologists study genome sequencing? ;-) (I'm stirring here, lol)

1) mutations, obviously.
2) all the time.

. Are you just making stuff up now?
Humans have about 20,000 good protein-coding genes and about 100 broken ones. Please explain why you think the number 100 is larger than the number 20,000.
http://www.livescience.com/18518-humans-broken-genes.html

but you are answering this from an evolutionist assumption that the 20000 genes have evolved. I see 20000 genes that have always been there

So I will answer the question more correctly, and more accurately:
1) mutations are the theoretical method of addding active genes, although how mutations can actually activate a new functional gene is unknown.
2) these types of mutations of beneficial new genes activating are never observed in reality

These responses are so ridiculous that its difficult to comment. Clearly you ignore the very simple explanations provided by myself and others. There's no point in explaining it further since honesty plays no role in how you form beliefs.

The idea that 'all the genes were there in the beginning' is so ridiculous that it is difficult to talk about without sounding patronizing.

These responses are so ridiculous that its difficult to comment. Clearly you ignore the very simple explanations provided by myself and others. There's no point in explaining it further since honesty plays no role in how you form beliefs.

I've been avoiding the fossil record because these discussions get highly varied and detailed and so its easier and clearer to have one discussion topic at the time. (this is the reason I ignore the insults and general strawmen arguments against creationists that are often included in these discussions).

I don't mind starting that discussion now, maybe you guys would like to shelve the "added gene" discussion seeing as the discussion seems to be frustrating you, I have summarised below my feelings on that whole discussion topic, and I do feel we have both stated our cases quite clearly.

Regarding the fossil record, just for starters, let me tell you what would happen if there was a small landmass, an anoxic and sulphuric ocean filled with bacteria and trilobites. The bacteria have the shortest life-spans, many generations would be found dead before the first dead trilobite. As oceans got more oxygenated over time, so a few unique freshwater fish could adapt to the saltwater conditions (experiments have shown that some freshwater fish can adapt, agreed through natural selection). Parts of the ocean floors rise above sea lavel, meaning land fauna and flora can take hold on what was previously ocean floor. Their fossils are obviously found above bacteria and trilobites and fish.

So the first mistakes of evolutionists is incorrectly assuming that trilobites evolved from bacteria, and land fauna and flora evolved later. The geologic record is showing the layers in that sequence, and yet simultaneously geologists admit to very little landmass during the widespread trilobite stage. The fossils of the original insertion of land fauna and flora could have been simultaneous and already discovered and yet that particular enclave is not yet dated, or even currently sitting under the oceans. The assumption of "evolving" is merely an assumption not fully taking into account the already admitted small landmass of that era. So creationists are missing land fossils of the same radiometric dating as the trilobites, evolutionists are missing these intermediate transitional fossils in the correct places on the geologic timescale. (half bacteria/half trilobite plus more intermediate stages).

These types of arguments can follow through the entire geologic column, with obvious reasons for the proliferation of each type of layer put forward by both evolutionists and creationists. Both parties are missing fossils and giving specific reasons why those types of fossils would be rare in that particular layer. Neither view has an advantage over the other view, because of the lack of respectively "transitional fossils" and "carboniferous mammal/human fossils".




When did you show me an example of an additional unique beneficial functional gene being introduced by nature into the genome? The examples given in this thread were for example: artifically inserted "clones", or of a "dead gene" (Duffy gene), or of a changed gene (plastic eating bacteria). Each time an example was given, I explained how that example is an irrelevant process to explain the observation of modern genomes containing many thousands of unique active genes.

I'm not ignoring simple explanations, I'm emphasizing that your beliefs are not supported by observation, and each example given by pro-evolutionists in this thread has not explained how nature adds a unique functional protein-coding gene to the genome. Duplications and insertions are not such. They can add hardiness , but they are duplicate genes, not unique functional genes.

The above statement is simply false.

They are functional genes. You just don't understand any of it because you have a predetermined position that you cannot change. You are making the rules up as you see fit for your predetermined purpose. The "superbug" is recent, a perfect example, and you glaze over every similar example as your version of "having no merit" for BS reasons.

The irony here is that from a Christian perspective, you making up false statements and stating incorrectly what has transpired on this thread to back up your false statements is considered in Christian circles to be pretty vile.

http://www.naturalnews.com/superbug.html

Origins of New Genes and Pseudogenes
By: Chitra Chandrasekaran, Ph.D. (Texas Wesleyan University) & Esther Betrán, Ph.D. (Department of Biology, University of Texas, Arlington, TX) © 2008 Nature Education Citation: Chandrasekaran , C. & Betrán , E. (2008)

Origins of new genes and pseudogenes. Nature Education 1(1)


Much of the current excitement about gene duplication stems from the fact that with the number of sequenced genomes now available, researchers have more accurate estimates of how often genes duplicate, and these rates are extremely high. For example, more than 100 genes duplicate in the human genome per 1 million years (Hahn et al., 2007a). This means that the percentage of the genome affected by gene number differences (estimated to be 6%) contributes more to the differences between humans and chimpanzees than do single nucleotide differences between orthologous sequences (estimated to be 1.5% [Demuth et al., 2006]). High rates (17 genes per 1 million years) have also been estimated in flies (Hahn et al., 2007b). Additional excitement comes from the realization that duplications occur so often that individuals of the same species differ greatly in DNA content and gene number (i.e., many duplications are polymorphic and contribute to individual differences [Sebat et al., 2004]). It is estimated that, on average, two humans will differ by approximately 5 megabases of information.


Unexpectedly, several duplication trends have been described in genomes with respect to sex chromosome evolution. Many new male genes originate in species' Y chromosomes. Some of these male genes are organized in families that undergo gene conversion to avoid Y-chromosome degeneration. Male germ-line genes can also duplicate out of the X chromosome through retroposition (Betrán et al., 2002; Emerson et al., 2004; Lahn et al., 2001; Rozen et al., 2003). These findings reveal that genomic location and organization matter for gene origination and function.


De Novo Gene Origination
Figure 1New genes can additionally originate de novo from noncoding regions of DNA. Indeed, several novel genes derived from noncoding DNA have recently been described in Drosophila (Begun et al., 2007; Levine et al., 2006). For these recently originated Drosophila genes with likely protein-coding abilities, there are no homologues in any other species. Note, however, that the de novo genes described in various species thus far include both protein-coding and noncoding genes. These new genes sometimes originate in the X chromosome, and they often have male germ-line functions.


What Happens to New Genes?
All these new sequences add to the complexity and diversity of genomes. As with any mutation, when new genes become fixed in a genome, they add to the differences between species and serve as the raw material for evolution (Ohno, 1970). This is easy to see in the case of gene duplication. Gene duplication results in two or more copies of a gene: one that can maintain its original function in the organism, and other(s) that can be "played with" to take on new functions. As a consequence, new duplicates are a main source of genome innovation and often evolve under positive selection, in which rapid changes in the protein encoded by the new gene occur to gain a new function (Presgraves, 2005). This process is referred to as neofunctionalization of the new gene.

QUOTE:
LOL you still not getting it! You highlight this fact when you emphasize that a gene can change its form through changes in the four bases. This does not add a gene to the genome.
Of course it does. The creation of new genes is not the creation of new genes? That's news to me. .

Its not adding an extra functional gene to the genome, which is required for evolution as an explantion for the appearance of complex life forms.



QUOTE:
In fact, here is an article you can check out - it discusses how new genes are created via gene duplication, transposable element protein domestication, lateral gene transfer, gene fusion, gene fission, and de novo origination.
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/origins-of-new-genes-and-pseudogenes-835?


Duplications cause "junk DNA". Dormant unused inactive genes. Humans have 32000 active useful non-viral genes, where did these come from?

The "superbug".

Another useless example that is missing the entire point. There is no added gene in the superbug, just natural selection of the bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.

I have no problem with "evolving", the natural selection of the fittest.

I have a problem with a single gene organism becoming 2 genes, then 3 genes, then 4 genes ......... then 21999 genes, then 22000 genes, each gene with a unique function. This process would involve the creation of new genes with new functions.

Show me an example when a unique beneficial gene is added to the genome succesfully in nature.

Hey I've got no problem with the creation of new species through changes to allele frequencies, but this does not explain evolution's stance of highly evolved creatures with lot's of genes coming from simple creatures with a few egenes. It is only that aspect of evolution that I disagree with. Sure creatures can evolve, but within their current gene diversity, and allele diversity. They can devolve, reducing their complexity. But additonal good genes as required by evolution to explain the existence of humans, naaa.

Tell me how does an arthropod (+-10000 genes) become a human? Two insects join together? :) A gene added here and there that becomes functional over time? How does it happen?

Rare genetic fusion caused superbug NDM1, study finds
Kounteya Sinha & Durgesh Nandan Jha, TNN Feb 11, 2012, 03.14AM IST
Tags:

University of Cardiff|
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital|
NDM1|
Dr Mark Toleman

NEW DELHI: A "highly rare genetic fusion" between two previously-known antibiotic-resistant genes gave birth to the dangerous Indian superbug metallo-beta-lactamase, NDM1.

This fusion also gave NDM1 the power to easily jump between various species of bacteria at superfast speed and consequently making them drug resistant too.

British scientists, who first reported the NDM1 last year, has now found through genetic DNA studies that NDM1 - by jumping between bacteria strains - can make several diseases they cause in humans, resistant to known antibiotics.

The latest study published in the medical journal, "Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy", also dismisses the argument that the superbug NDM1 has been in the environment for many years.

The study's lead author Dr Mark Toleman from the University of Cardiff said "We now know that NDM1 got created very recently and any ideas that suggest it is found everywhere and has been around for ever are baseless."

He added, "Usually the DNA of such genes change frequently. However, in NDM1 we saw no such change, hence it has recently been created. It may have originated from a bacterium in the environment that didn't harm humans. After the fusion, it started jumping from one bacterium to another making several diseases caused by them resistant to drugs. It spreads mostly through fecal oral route. It's a rare fusion event that gave birth to NDM1."

The team says that when they first reported the existence of the NDM1, it was isolated only in E Coli.

Now, it has jumped to over 20 different species of bacteria. The latest study says, "This is unequivocal evidence that NDM1 is a chimera." A chimera is a single organism that is composed of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells originating from different entities.

The study says, "We sequence comparisons to show that NDM1 is a chimeric gene that has risen by the fusion of a pre-existing MBL gene with the resistance gene aphA6. We propose that the resulting changes in NDM1 expression and the properties of the expressed protein partially explain the greater success with which NDM1 has disseminated as compared to other MBLs that confer a similar resistance type."

Dr Chand Wattal, chairman of department of clinical microbiology at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said, "The genetic fusion between antibiotic resistant genes is possible and NDM1 could be a result of it."

Dr M C Misra, chief of the AIIMS Trauma Centre, said that mutation of genes is a natural process and it has been seen that the new species that evolve through the process are more virulent.

"This phenomenon is present across the world. But in India, the risk is bigger because misuse and abuse of antibiotics are higher. There is possibility of even the commonest of bacteria and viruses treatable with first or second generation drugs at present getting resistant and untreatable," said Dr Misra.

He said that a stringent policy of sale and purchase of antibiotics and its usage in hospital setting is the need of the hour. The study adds, "Carbapenems are potent antibiotics that are reserved for life threatening bacterial infections. However, their effectiveness is increasingly compromised by resistance. The NDM1 was unknown before 2008 and we have previously shown that it is widely disseminated in the UK and South Asia. We have also identified NDM1 genes in a broad range of bacteria isolated from the environment in New Delhi including the serious pathogens Shigella boydii and Vibrio cholerae. Possession of NDM1 confers resistance to all classes of antibiotics like penicillin, cephalosporin and carbapenem."

The scientists after testing Delhi's water supply had earlier said that NDM1 gene had spread to the bacteria that caused cholera and dysentery in the country.

The scientists had said the NDM gene was present in Delhi's public water supply used by locals for drinking, washing and preparing their food. Initially, it was thought to be hospital-acquired. Scientists made another important finding - the transfer rate (rate at which the NDM-1 gene is copied and transferred between different bacteria) was highest at 30°C - a temperature common in Delhi for almost seven months in a year, from April to October.

Coauthor Timothy R Walsh, professor of medical microbiology at Cardiff University, had earlier told TOI that the carriage rate of NDM-1 in India is between 100 million and 200 million.

Checkmate.