Hi Brent >>But random mutations *don't* result in catastrophe. Your body has hundreds >>of cells with copying errors in their DNA. Of course only those in gametes can get passed to progeny. But even gamete DNA can have copying errors without catastrophic results.
When youre talking about common-all-garden mutations within strands of DNA ofcourse there is no catestrophic result. Infact, evolution via natural selection depends on the possibility of copying error. Its a good source of mutation. The genetic code is high fidelity but not *that* high fidelity. When you're talking about mutation and evolution of the code itself, between the mapping of codons and amino acids for example then that is genuinely catestrophic. That doesn't seem to me to be contentious, btw. All the best > Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 20:28:41 -0700 > From: meeke...@verizon.net > To: everything-list@googlegroups.com > Subject: Re: Serious proof of why the theory of evolution is wrong > > On 8/8/2013 8:10 PM, chris peck wrote: > > Hi Prof. Standish > > > > Thanks so much for the offer. I actually hunted the paper down from a link > > in the > > original springer resource you posted. Some of it flies over my head, but > > not all of it, > > so I'll persevere... > > > > "ISTM that you are implicitly assuming that these replicating > > hypercycles only emerged once, whereas I would think that replicating > > RNA probably arose many times quite easily when life wasn't around to > > gobble them up." > > > > Not really, but re-reading your original post I'm actually quite persuaded > > by the idea > > that even if these replicating mechanisms emerged very rarely it would be > > possible and > > enough to invoke the anthropic principle. After all, it only had to emerge > > once in the > > whole universe for these questions to get asked... > > > > Whats niggling me though is something else. Dawkins sometimes intimates > > that the current > > code was something that itself evolved from low to high fidelity. For > > reasons I've made > > I can't see how that can be so. Evolution is a process where beneficial but > > random > > changes accumulate and are passed on through successive generations. But if > > a random > > mutation in the code results in catastrophe as Dawkins acknowledges then > > that can't happen. > > But random mutations *don't* result in catastrophe. Your body has hundreds > of cells with > copying errors in their DNA. Of course only those in gametes can get passed > to progeny. > But even gamete DNA can have copying errors without catastrophic results. > > > > > This is to say that if the code evolved then that evolution could not be > > Darwinian in > > nature. > > Sure it could. Random mutations, most of which are bad, many of which are > neutral, and a > few of which are beneficial relative to subsequent natural selection. If DNA > copying were > perfect there could be no evolution, so if some organisms developed with > perfect (or just, > "too good") error correcting codes, they almost certainly got left behind in > the > evolutionary arms race and have left no descendants. > > Brent > > > > > I find it reassuring that there is research underway addressing this issue. > > I found this > > paper over my lunch break: > > > > http://www.pnas.org/content/103/28/10696.full > > > > They emphasize ambiguity over error in early coding mechanisms and suggest > > a kind of > > Lamarkian evolutionary dynamic that existed prior to and eventually gave > > way to > > Darwinian evolutionary dynamics. Horizontal vs. vertical heredity etc. In > > many ways that > > might be seen as heresy by the biological community but laymen like me > > don't mind a > > little heresy here and there. We don't know any better. :) > > > > Anyway, it seems to offer the following response to Statham. His argument > > is underpinned > > by the assumption that all evolution is Darwinian. If one sheds that > > assumption then the > > code could evolve without the consequent catastrophe. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
