|
Author
|
Topic: Changes forced by the environment
|
Supersport
Member
Member # 1989
|
posted 10. June 2006 08:41
I live in Texas. We have a farm with with lots of land out in the country. It is well known that the area has been overrun with wild pigs. The county has stressed time and time again to keep any pigs that you may have in a secure location....because it is known that if they escape they can quickly resort to being a "wild pig".....and a menace to the area. Hogs go feral VERY easily. It just takes a few generations for pigs to totally change appearance and resort to obnoxious social behavior.
But these "wild pigs" are different in many ways than domestic pigs. First, their APPEARANCE changes dramatically. In only two or three generations a domesticated pig (short, very little hair, big rear end, small shoulders, big loin, lots of fat) will turn into a beastly feral hog -- tall, hairy, small hams, larger shoulders, longer snout, different hooves, smaller loin, little fat. Also their behavior changes drasically. They soon become predators instead of friendly pets. Was all this spawned by the change in their environment?
If so, then what's to stop the environment from forcing other types of changes? Have scientists TESTED this? How about global warming?
(see link below)
"For the first time ever, a University of Alberta researcher has discovered that an animal species has changed its genetic make-up to cope with global warming. In the past, organisms have shown the flexibility - or plasticity - to adapt to their surroundings, but this is the first time it has been proven a species has responded genetically to cope with environmental forces"
or this........
"Evidence is growing that climate change is leading to genetic changes that are passed down the generations in animals as diverse as birds, squirrels and mosquitoes, scientists report.....These changes have often been attributed to the ability of individuals to modify their behaviour or physiology in response to altered environmental conditions"
---------------
Or how about physiological changes due to pollution...
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/1999-09/CUNS-Pmca-290999.php
here's another link where lizards changed physiologically due to an environment change:
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/evol/lizard.html
I have no doubt that evolutionists will have some sort of answer for this...I'm just not sure what it would be. S
[ 10. June 2006, 10:29: Message edited by: Supersport ]
IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
|
posted 10. June 2006 11:08
No one doubts that minor changes can take place due to back mutations which are always going on. The various breeds of dogs are maintained only by by th scrupulous rejection of unwanted mutations by animal breeders. I suspect the same is true for all domesticated animals. The important point is that such feral animals are still the same species as their domesticated predecessors at least as far as we know. The dog, the coyote and the wolf all produce fertile hybrids with each other. I suspect the same would be true with wild and domesticated hogs. The return to the original wild type makes good sense as well. After all that is what natural selection had preserved before man intervened. Natural selection not only prevents change but can reverse artificially produced change as well. Nevertheless these are interesting observations and may involve some unknown factors. Docility has certainly been a universal feature of man's domesticated friends. It rapidly disappears in feral animals.
IP: Logged
|
|
Supersport
Member
Member # 1989
|
posted 10. June 2006 11:25
I guess my point with the feral pigs was that it was the change in environment that forced these genetic alterations to happen.
The other examples I gave were not of domesticated animals, yet were also forced to change genetically due to an environment change. Not only did they change but they changed quickly. This seems to go against any theory that requires long chains of random mutations. S
[ 10. June 2006, 11:26: Message edited by: Supersport ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Bruce Fast
Member
Member # 924
|
posted 11. June 2006 00:48
Supersport, I checked out your links. In both cases I fail to see any evidence of "classic definition" speciation, or of beneficial mutation. All I see is that nature can do with a species what animal breeders have been doing for years, modify the allelic mix of the species. The fact that such drivel gets published is the part that puzzles me.
If you breed an animal for speed, you will get faster animals -- to a point. If you breed an animal for size, you will get larger animals -- to a point. If you breed a squirrel to mate earlier in spring, you will get squirrels that mate earlier in spring. Your evidence supports Dr. Davison's PEH hypothesis over the neo-Darwinian hypothesis quite nicely. The fact that such is "news" and "proof of evolution" is also strong support for PEH over the NDE hypothesis.
IP: Logged
|
|
Zachriel
Member
Member # 1793
|
posted 11. June 2006 08:32
Bruce Fast: "All I see is that nature can do with a species what animal breeders have been doing for years, modify the allelic mix of the species."
That is incorrect. Animal breeders are fully aware of beneficial mutation, and will often wait a lifetime for such a mutation in purebred species. But as breeders well-know, there is no predicting what or when something beneficial will happen.
IP: Logged
|
|
John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
|
posted 11. June 2006 10:16
Bruce Fast is right and Zachriel is wrong. How is that for arbitrary?
IP: Logged
|
|
Bruce Fast
Member
Member # 924
|
posted 11. June 2006 11:19
Zachriel, "Animal breeders are fully aware of beneficial mutation, and will often wait a lifetime for such a mutation in purebred species."
Example please.
IP: Logged
|
|
Zachriel
Member
Member # 1793
|
posted 11. June 2006 12:49
Bruce Fast: "Example please."
You certainly don't believe that the genes that make poodles unique are merely reshuffled wolf genes. There is ample historical record of dog breeds, and poodles did not exist more than a few centuries ago.
In cats, a spontaneous mutation occurred which changed black to chocolate brown producing the Chocolate Point Siamese. It was not due to any outcross. Other mutations include the Rex coat, the hairless Sphynx, the ears of the Scottish Fold and the American Curl, the Manx, Japanese Bobtail.
American Cockatiel Society: The New Rare Mutations
In any case, breeders are very interested in mutation, both beneficial and detrimental, and their effects. It is an important issue in animal husbandry and pet breeders, and there is significant scientific effort in this regard and several peer journals.
IP: Logged
|
|
Supersport
Member
Member # 1989
|
posted 11. June 2006 12:59
Well then what's this new mechanism that was recently discovered, "Genetic Accommodation?" I'm just a hack novice at this but there's obviously got to be a reason for this "cool news." Here's the link to the story at Panda, June 8, 2006:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/06/evolution_and_m.html#more
"Here’s some very cool news: scientists have directly observed the evolution of a complex, polygenic, polyphenic trait by genetic assimilation and accommodation in the laboratory. This is important, because it is simultaneously yet another demonstration of the fact of evolution, and an exploration of mechanisms of evolution—showing that evolution is more sophisticated than changes in the coding sequences of individual genes spreading through a population, but is also a consequence of the accumulation of masked variation, synergistic interactions between different alleles and the environment, and perhaps most importantly, changes in gene regulation."
There seems to be some concern in the article that design people will view this as a victory. I don't see how it couldn't be. S
[ 11. June 2006, 13:00: Message edited by: Supersport ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Supersport
Member
Member # 1989
|
posted 11. June 2006 20:26
I'm going to let Dr. Lee Spetner make my point...
"If results indicate that adaptive mutations are stimulated by the environment, they contradict the basic dogma of neo-Darwinism. According to that dogma, mutations are random, and the kind of mutations occur are independent of the environment. If mutations are really nonrandom in the sense that the environment can stimulate adaptive mutations, then the paradigm of Darwinian evolution, which has dominated the biological sciences for close to 150 years, must be replaced."
Am I missing something? As I see it, design folks don't need to go to any massive effort trying to disprove Toe, all they have to do run a few experiments.....and observe if animals can make a quick adaptation to an environmental change. If this indeed happens, (as the links I provided indicate) then according to Spetner, Toe must be replaced. S
[ 11. June 2006, 21:51: Message edited by: Supersport ]
IP: Logged
|
|
peter borger
Member
Member # 722
|
posted 12. June 2006 06:17
quote:
The other examples I gave were not of domesticated animals, yet were also forced to change genetically due to an environment change. Not only did they change but they changed quickly. This seems to go against any theory that requires long chains of random mutations. S
GUToB says: Mechanisms for variation and adaptive phenotypes are preexisting in the genome.
That explains why organisms quickly revert to the wild type. The mechanisms act non-randomly and are preexisting in the genome as active genetic elements that affect gene expression.
peebee
IP: Logged
|
|
peter borger
Member
Member # 722
|
posted 12. June 2006 06:23
keep repeating myself:
quote:
The genomes of these species show that the differences between these species are determined by:
1) the karyotypes, due to NON-RANDOM shuffling of chromosomes,
2) NON-RANDOM indel mutations,
3) a handful of NON-RANDOM point mutations in regulatory genes.
This has all been demonstrated and can be conceived as non-random predetermined fast-track evolution OR as an act of creation. I believe it is impossible to distinguish between these two options and it will for ever (till the end of days) be a hot topic in origin debates. Apparently, we were created free and everything is all a matter of belief.
peebee
IP: Logged
|
|
peter borger
Member
Member # 722
|
posted 12. June 2006 06:34
quote:
"Here’s some very cool news: scientists have directly observed the evolution of a complex, polygenic, polyphenic trait by genetic assimilation and accommodation in the laboratory. This is important, because it is simultaneously yet another demonstration of the fact of evolution, and an exploration of mechanisms of evolution—showing that evolution is more sophisticated than changes in the coding sequences of individual genes spreading through a population, but is also a consequence of the accumulation of masked variation, synergistic interactions between different alleles and the environment, and perhaps most importantly, changes in gene regulation."
GUToB says mechanisms for variation and adaptive phenotypes are preexisting in the genome.
What these guys are studying is the MULTIPURPOSE GENOME in action. Variation induction (darwinians would call it: evolution) as the result of the shuffling of preexisting variation-inducing genetic elements (VIGEs), formerly known as endogenous retroviral elements (HERVs: LINEs and SINEs, and the like).
It is GUToB. GUToB has an explanation for all biological phenomena. Rather: GUToB explains biology.
peebee
[ 12. June 2006, 06:41: Message edited by: peter borger ]
IP: Logged
|
|
peter borger
Member
Member # 722
|
posted 12. June 2006 06:49
quote:
Am I missing something? As I see it, design folks don't need to go to any massive effort trying to disprove Toe, all they have to do run a few experiments.....and observe if animals can make a quick adaptation to an environmental change. If this indeed happens, (as the links I provided indicate) then according to Spetner, Toe must be replaced. S
I agree. The data are all there and you can find them among the thousands of publications released each month. I know how to find them and present many examples of fast-track non-random genetic changes in my new book GUToB.
GUToB says: "it's all in the genome".
peebee
IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic