(This is everything as i understand/know it, please correct me if need be with respect i will respond openmindedly)

"Through the process of mutation and natural selection and mutation, species change over time"

Alright here are my questions... i ask that someone with knowledge of evolution answers me plz i want to know.
(1.)What observed mutations have been beneficial to an organism?
(2.)Does evolution occur through individual mutation, or through a mass mutation (the "herd" or the "group"?) - the reason i ask this... is because lets say the sun is hotter in a particular area of plain. an animal living there gains heavily pigmented skin through the process of mutation. wouldnt he have to have a group of offspring large (number wise) enough to keep that beneficial mutation in existance? I find it hard to believe that a group of animals evolve together, because the circumstances that cause the mutation would have to be existant in every organism of the herd/group right?
(3.)Is evolution a scientific theory? How do you test a process that takes millions/hundreds of thousands of years to occur? (scientific method) i dont see where the theory of evolution fits in this established method O.o


Alright... i dont "believe" or "disbelieve" evolution. alot of people automatically jump to one banwagon or the other... but im giving this alot of thought. isnt it poor scientific practice to believe in theories the first place? Lets say someone believes that the theory evolution is a complete phail. Wouldnt they be more inclined to provide bias/tweeked evidence that oposses evolution? And vise-versa with people who doe believe in evolution.

it sounds like im some crazy jesus christian fundementalist, but im not. i just have some Q's about evolution and i would like some A's

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/theory.htm
READ

"(the vast majority of the US population--some studies have indicated as high as 95%--are in essence scientifically illiterate, and have only the vaguest grasp of modern scientific thinking, and the creationists always make a point of appealing to this popular ignorance)." - i have presented no bias with my questions man. you expect me to read that? Im not a creationist.. im agnostic, but that essay was completely slamming creationists. i could barely hold it down... please answer my questions instead of presenting these "B.S." essays xD (I Really dont want to make this topic an evolutionary debate. if debate comes up so be it... but i really want answers thats all)

Devilesk, im not emphasizing that "Evolution is JUST a theory" im questioning wether or not it can be claimed a Scientific Theory. What i am emphasizing is the banwagon attitude, the Belief. scientific theories should be proposed, not believed in.

But of course, to correct myself... believing isnt always a choice. some people are just inherently swayed to one side or another...

O rly adam and eve? Where'd black people come from eh? hah. Evolution is commonly described as "Survival of the fittest" but thats a fallacy. Evolution is "Survival of the luckiest" basically the animal that wonders to find the only food in the forest lives, the others die. Maybe the animal with a long curved beak is the only kind that can get food out of the special "jdfsnfdjkns" tree but thats luck.

I think its kind of stupid to deny evolution, we have tail bones hello? Vestigial organs/structures, fossils records, not to mention we can see evolution happening with bacteria because it has such short life spans we can see it mutate faster.

midget, there are like millions of evidence. You need to look up at the biography of Charles Darwin.

Zell, He didnt deny evolution, dude. xD. i swear, people pick what they want to hear. (in this case read) hes saying that god created what was said to be created in the bible (adam and eve, eden, and earth and heavens) and evolution/adaptation occur since he has placed these into existance.

I dont believe what he says... but i felt inclined to stick up for him.

I understand evolution. i understand the evidence. What i doubt about evolution is in these questions. i dont doubt anything else. You can tell me other validacies, or facts, or more evidence to support evolution. i will accept them and understand them... but they wont remove the questions that im asking....

1) well you could call "Sickle Cell Anemia" a beneficial mutation to Africans.
2) The organism that receives the mutation would have to pass that gene on to the next generation. In some way or another the process of "natural selection" would kill off any of the animals that do not have that gene and cannot adapt to that environment, while the ones that had received that gene would survive and it would become common in all of the species in that area.
3) I think the easiest way to test evolution is to study extremely small organisms that reproduce very quickly. Scientists also use similar bones structures found in the fossil record.

There is no use in "believing" a theory. What people usually mean by "believe" in a theory is that they accept that theory and are willing to hypothesize new theories using evolution as a base.
So yes I "believe" in evolution. However I am Deist.

You don't have to believe anything, but there's enough evidence to justify a belief in evolution, just as there is enough evidence to justify a belief in gravity. The scientific community believes in evolution, because as a theory it is consistent, it has evidence, and it works. Whether you choose to follow the belief or not is ultimately yours, just as no matter how many people say 1+1 = 2 you could always choose to believe it doesn't. But you'd still have to justify your belief if you want it to be meaningful.

Also, the way you worded and included the statement below created the initial "misunderstanding."
Because that sentence isn't claiming whether or not evolution should be claimed as a scientific theory.



Anyway, discussion of "belief" is really irrelevant to this discussion, because "belief" and acceptance of a theory and claiming something as a theory go hand in hand. So the real question is, as you stated before, "wether or not it can be claimed a Scientific Theory."

And about this bandwagon crap, just because there are bandwagoners doesn't take away from its scientific credibility, just as I'm sure there are many who just accept that gravity is real without ever taking a physics class.

Also, as a theory you can't ever know for sure with absolute certainty. If anything other than actually seeing the process occur over millions of years isn't going to satisfy you then no theory that makes claims about the past is ever going to satisfy you, because you can't experience the past. It's the same thing as accepting that history once existed and took place when there's only material evidence to prove it.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jul 6 2008, 5:59 am by devilesk.

Woot!!! 10 points man. thats Exactly what i was looking for. thanks man. Not all these posts about evolutionary debate.

More questions though. ^.^

1)Would not mutation have to occur within a Zygote? (a fused cell that begins the life of an organism (egg+sperm)) If the mutation occurs while a species is alive, not all cells are effected nesicarilly. so if the sex cells arent effected then how does a beneficial mutation become passed down? If the organism was effected as a zygote, i can understand. then the cells of the organism as an adult would have the same DNA as the zygote.

"And about this bandwagon crap, just because there are bandwagoners doesn't take away from its scientific credibility, just as I'm sure there are many who just accept that gravity is real without ever taking a physics class. " - yea... my bad. i never said that it deminished evolution's credibility. i am saying people shouldnt jump on a banwagon without thought... >.>

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 6 2008, 6:10 am by midget_man_66.

Wow midget...
LOL you need to read, because I didn't say that to him nor did I even imply that towards him, I just hate when people deny evolution. You just quit because YOU just picked what you heard and YOU in this case misread.

that is one thing i have always wondered myself.
I think it is possible for a matured organism to have mutated genes, however. But, for this to occur there probably has to be a genetic mutation on a majority of the organisms cells. Enough cells to replace the old cells as they die off.
however, im not sure if the bodies immune system would attack mutated cells or not.
Or perhaps all that the mutation has to affect is the reproductive cells, and the cells have to be passed on before death.

One might count the survival of various pathogens which develop immunities to our antibiotics.
To further my example and add onto SiN's post, pathogens. The ones which are still affected by our treatments will die off relatively quickly, leaving only the ones that for some reason are safe alive, allowing them to reproduce. Thus, we must find new ways to kill them, etc. ...
Ironically, this means we're imposing super-fast artitificial selection upon these things, allowing them to evolve faster than they ever could otherwise have.
We don't need to test - we observe it occuring, on small scale, and, like I mentioned... artificial selection. Look at dog breeding.
Basically, it fits nearly all of our facts, both old and new, it makes sense, and it explains everything quite nicely. Therefore, it's reasonable to trust in it, which is the important thing.
Reasonable expectation.
Link not really especially related, but it does illustrate the point of the matter - that we deal with what we expect and think, and at any point when dealing with the physical world, it's simply a question of whether or not our thoughts and beliefs make sense.
Well, as long as the mutation is in one's genes at the time of their offspring's conception, basically. It just has to be in the part of them that goes into making the new creature - the egg and sperm, I would assume.
Then errors also occur during the making of the child's genes, which can result in further mutation.
And then they can occur... pretty much at any time... and...
Ya.

I just think that whole paragraph in your first post wasn't relevent and necessary.

Nice, I like that whole description of the difference between faith and reasonable expectation. It really makes clear what the difference is.

Have a read up on Peppered moth evolution for one such case. I'm sure there are more, but that's from the top of my head.

Like said before too, sickle cell anemia. If you're a carrier for it, you are genetically immune to malaria, so selection for being heterozygous can be seen in the native African population, but after many generations African Americans no longer carry the gene with any frequency since the only consequence in America where there is no malaria is to receive both sickle cell genes and die of sickle cell anemia.

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(2.)Does evolution occur through individual mutation, or through a mass mutation (the "herd" or the "group"?) - the reason i ask this... is because lets say the sun is hotter in a particular area of plain. an animal living there gains heavily pigmented skin through the process of mutation. wouldnt he have to have a group of offspring large (number wise) enough to keep that beneficial mutation in existance? I find it hard to believe that a group of animals evolve together, because the circumstances that cause the mutation would have to be existant in every organism of the herd/group right?

Individual mutations; like the moths Moose mentioned, if one individual has a mutation that is not harmful, it will continue to pass it on to its offspring. This includes useless mutations. If the mutation, however, is beneficial, then more of that individual's offspring will survive and more of their offspring's offspring will survive, and so on.

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1)Would not mutation have to occur within a Zygote? (a fused cell that begins the life of an organism (egg+sperm)) If the mutation occurs while a species is alive, not all cells are effected nesicarilly. so if the sex cells arent effected then how does a beneficial mutation become passed down? If the organism was effected as a zygote, i can understand. then the cells of the organism as an adult would have the same DNA as the zygote.

In single-celled organisms such as archaebacteria and eubacteria, reproduction is done completely asexually. Mutations occur during mitosis, and one cell division creates a new individual since the organism consists of only one cell.

In multicellular eukaryotes, mutation obviously must occur during reproduction. Mutation also occurs during normal cell division and the growth of the organism; this is called cancer, and when it becomes out of control, then tumors and other signs develop with which you are probably familiar.

If a multicellular organism reproduces asexually, then the mutation that alters the new organism will occur during the first mitosis like a single-celled organism.

Sexual reproduction, however, gives multicellular organisms a distinct advantage. Mutation does not need to occur, since meiosis ensures that each new organism will be genetically different than either of its parents. Mutation need not occur since genetic diversity is already facilitated by the combining of two sex cells (even from the same parent). If mutation occurs during meiosis, it doesn't really make a difference, because you're already massively mixing and matching DNA.

Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators. yuppers thats why some people are born with tails =P and why youd never see (well maybe in a million years if they evolved) a muscle or oyster with limbs,anyone who denies evolution is just stupid and cant comprehend it so they deny it lol

That is stupid. People spread out and they adapt to the environment.