Too Many Babies and a Polish Monk

Daniel, I have always had an interest in genetics, but never got the opportunity to study it any more than you do in high school biology.

Thanks for the overview. I've recently gotten a car with a CD player and I've been really enjoying audiobooks - I'm going to go to the library when this wave of storm lets up, and see what I can find on biology.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jun 13 2006, 10:24 AM) [snapback]270471[/snapback]</div>

I think I'll have to pick it up - I only checked Amazon, and didn't realize it was actually available on audio - but I'm on my way to downloading it now. I want to make sure I'm allowed to burn it, but if not I'll order the set. That's a great price - I collect educational materials (I'm a packrat) because I've got it in my head that someday I'll start teaching.

 

I think it is quite sad that evolution needs defending in this country. What's next? Will we start putting scientists in jail who maintain that the earth revolves around the sun, as the Vatican did to Galileo? Talk about flogging a dead horse. Evolution is an accepted scientific fact everywhere in the world except in primitive theocracies.

 

ah genetics. interesting stuff, really. this is a big component of what i spent my undergrad years studying. and while i got a little more in depth than what's covered here (memories of hours straight digging through textbooks and OMIM the night before the big exams come to mind), the overall idea is definitely in there. although, no matter how much fact you show someone, you won't change their minds if they don't want their minds changed.

kudos to those who decide to continue their education based solely on things that interest them.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jun 13 2006, 02:03 PM) [snapback]270618[/snapback]</div>

What's interesting is that serveral of the radical right posters here are actually delighted by the reports of internet data mining, saying (to paraphrase) "the NSA has all the dirt they need on lefty anti-war people - just wait" Those threats truly reveal their fundamentally fascist psychology, and I'm not using fascist as a smear, but as the most accurate term.

 

Before you buy any audio book, check you library. It's amazing what they have and if they don't have what you're looking for, they will check larger librarys in the area to see if it can be transferred for you.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ Jun 13 2006, 11:33 AM) [snapback]270503[/snapback]</div>

I recently re-read "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking that discusses, among other things, the "creation" of the universe. He doesn't have a problem with a concept that a god created the universe - wouldn't such a powerful being be perfectly capable of creating a "system" with scientific principals that humans could explore and discover? Such a "system" would contain concepts like evolution as well as quantum mechanics and relativity.

I DO understand that some religious fundamentalists believe that their ancient teachings/writings/oral histories/etc. are LITERAL statements about concepts like creation; I'm one of those people who are more flexible and allow that some of these 'great teachings' may be metaphorical and not literal. So I agree with Hawkings' thoughts re: god/creation/science.

 

Great info. Thanks for posting it.

Evolution is fascinating.

I'll never forget my college Biology class . It became very interesting when a transfer student from a local "bible college" become vocal. When we got to evolution, he gave a huge speech about evolution being a myth perpetuated by liberal professors trying to disprove god. Then as evidence of creationism, he brought up Dr. Duane Gish (psycho) and the 2nd law of thermodynamics (I may have that wrong). He went on to say Evolution is a "theory" it's never been proven, etc.

Evolution vs. Creationism, who would've thought it would still be going on?

To paraphrase Stephen Colbert (funniest man on earth).......The bible should be taught in our public schools. Why else would god have written it in english?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(The Amazing Arthur @ Jun 14 2006, 02:10 AM) [snapback]270997[/snapback]</div>

He's correct - you can't PROVE any 'theory', you can only DISprove a theory. A theorEM in mathematics can be proven or disproven. "God exists" and "There is no god" are two theories.

 

In 1977, I found myself as a student in a small Southern Baptist College in KY. So one day, the biology professor comes in sort of shuffling, and he starts this speech about how what is going to be taught that day might be offensive to some, and that bthey would not be tested on the material. So I think...here is comes, he's going to talk about sex. I was blown away when the topic was evolution!

I had been reared in a Southern Baptist church with a youth director who had been a chemistry major in college. This was a time before the moral Majority (remember them?) and the rise of the religious right. The college had been a bastion of intelllectual rigor. My episode in biology class was a harbinger of things to come.

BTW, I left this college after 1 1/2 years -- it was just too Baptist all the way around, and not in a good way either! Actually, I couldn't seem to stay out of trouble -- I was always in the office of the Dean of Women for some thing or another.


Peace --

 

Daniel, what will you do if one of the lectures, by implication or overtly, denies the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

 

Warning: 'Religiously Incorrect' material (that some may find offensive):

They are all figurative.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jeannie @ Jun 13 2006, 07:37 PM) [snapback]270793[/snapback]</div>

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jun 13 2006, 09:46 AM) [snapback]270452[/snapback]</div>

I would like to argue with this. Admitting population change does not imply admition of evolution. Natural Selection is a good and viable method of change, but the problem is determining whether the selection process was based on a new feature of DNA (I.E. mutation) or was mearly bring forward a feature that was already present in the population's DNA. I would like to see an example where:

1. A definable mutation occured. The parent's DNA did not contain the trait at all, not just such that it was recessive, and the offsprings DNA did.

2. The mutation had a positive effect on the offspring. The offspring thrived without human interferance and the mutation caused an increase in the chance of survival until reproduction can occur.

3. The mutation was inheritable. The offspring's progany had at least a chance of receiving the mutation trait, whether dominant or recessive.

4. The mutation increased the chance of the offspring to reproduce. The mutation cannot prevent the offspring from repoducing with un-mutated examples of the parent's population unless sufficient numbers exist of the same mutation to sustain the new, mutated population.


Otherwise, I argue that population change is only evidence of previously existing traits being brought to the foreground and is not, in and of itself, evidence of evolution.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ Jun 13 2006, 11:33 AM) [snapback]270503[/snapback]</div>

Evolution, just like any other theory, statment, proof, rule, fact, or belief, can and must be defended rigorously, at any time, to any one. To do otherwise is to stagnate. Popular acceptance of anything is just that, popularity. The next person to question anything we hold to be true might just be right.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hawkjm73 @ Jun 18 2006, 02:48 PM) [snapback]273129[/snapback]</div>

often a mutation is as little as a one-base-pair change. a single amino acid mutation in the right place is enough to change the conformation or stability of a protein. depending on the role of the protein and the location of the amino acid, this could be a major difference.

ok, this is a rather controversial example but has been ruled as beneficial overall so i'll use it.

malaria is very common in africa. also common in African populations is the sickle-cell trait. and while in the absence of malaria this is an overall deleterious trait, in the presence of malaria it is advantageous. sickle cell prevents infection with falciparum malaria. those with sickle cell and no malaria live longer than those with no sickle cell and malaria. therefore the sickle cell population has a greater chance of reproducing than the non-sickle cell population.

anything based in DNA is heritable if the mutation can be found in germline cells.

this can in some cases be caused by an environmental mutation during adulthood but often is caused by some mutation during embryonic development (whether natural or due to the in utero environment.

if it performs the same function in the second generation as it does in the first (which, why wouldn't it? it's not like these things have personalities, they're fixed function things), then this is not an issue. and the original mutant has to mate with a non-mutant to create the offspring, no?

this is all in the properties of heredity.

genetic mutations can't be "brought to the foreground" in that kind of sense. you have two copies of each gene, and you get what you get. nothing's really "hiding" unless you're talking about a recessive masked trait, and to be honest most of those are deleterious mutations.

dominant mutations are ones that are expressed even if only one copy of the mutant gene is present. recessive traits require both copies of the gene to be mutant to be expressed. deleterious dominant mutations can affect organisms' ability to reproduce more frequently than deleterious recessive mutations, simply because it only takes one bad copy of the gene to cause the negative effect. therefore, deleterious dominant mutations rarely make it in the gene pool.

what's left are the deleterious recessive mutations- this requires 2 copies of the bad gene to cause a negative effect. as long as you have one good copy, you're okay. to get 2 bad copies, you have to have two heterozygous parents (each one with one good copy and one bad copy) and the chance of passing both bad copies of the gene on is 1/4. there are many healthy heterozygotes out there though, who have one good copy and one bad copy.and the one good copy of the gene is sufficient. these deleterious recessive mutations are the ones that are "hiding" in the genome.

sure there are recesssive advantageous mutations- and if 2 copies of that gene is involved in reproductive success, it is passed on more frequently than the other genes. therefore the gene because more prevalent than the dominant gene for the same reasons that dominant deleterious genes are phased out of the population. this happens solely as a factor of reproductive success and is nothing that's already in the genome just waiting around to show up. to sum all this up, if it's in the DNA it'll show up. it won't show up until it is in the DNA, and the only way it'll get into the DNA as a new version of a gene is by mutation.

hope that clears things up a bit.