Natural selection is proven wrong

[gamila]

You see cancer as bad because it kills you however evolutionary it is of very little relevance

you are abusing language

there is no way you can say the genes that cause cancer are not harmful

and as such there being transmitted and common invalidates NS

”natural selection, a process that causes helpful traits (those that increase the chance of survival and reproduction) to become more common in a population and causes harmful traits to become more rare”(Ref: Futuyma, Douglas Evolution 2005”

read this

http://www.genesispark.com/genpark/explo/explo.htm

For example the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history[/quote]

The introduction of a variety of organisms in the early Cambrian, including such complex forms of the arthropods as the trilobites, is surprising.... The introduction of abundant organisms in the record would not be so surprising if they were simple. Why should such complex organic forms be in rocks about six hundred million years old and be absent or unrecognized in the records of the preceding two billion years? ...If there has been evolution of life, the absence of the requisite fossils in the rocks older than the Cambrian is puzzling." (Kay, Marshall, and Edwin H. Colbert, Stratigraphy and Life History, 1965, 736 pp.102-103, as cited in Morris, 1974)

some genetic disorders
http://www.noah-health.org/en/genetic/

Specific Conditions

* Achromatopsia

* Adrenal Hypoplasia Congenita

* Adrenoleukodystrophy

* Aicardi Syndrome

* Alagille Syndrome

* Albinism/Hypopigmentation

* Alexander Disease

* Alpers' Disease

* Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency

* Alzheimer's Disease

* Amblyopia

* Angelman Syndrome

* Anencephaly

* Aniridia

* Anophthalmia

* Ataxia Telangiectasia

* Autism

* Bardet-Biedl Syndrome

* Barth Syndrome

* Batten Disease

* Best's Disease

* Bipolar Disorder

* Bloom Syndrome

* Branchio-Oto-Renal (BOR) Syndrome

* Canavan Syndrome

* Cancer Genetics

* Carnitine Deficiencies

* Carnitine Acylcarnitine Translocase Deficiency

* Carnitine Palmitoyltransferase Deficiency

* Cerebral Palsy

* Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease

* Cleft Lip/Cleft Palate

* Coffin Lowry Syndrome

* Coloboma

* Color Blindness

* Congenital Heart Defects

* Congenital Hip Dysplasia (Dislocation)

* Connective Tissue Disorders

* Cooley's Anemia

* Corneal Dystrophy

* Cornelia de Lange Syndrome

* Cystic Fibrosis

* Cystinosis

* Developmental Disabilities

* Diabetes

* Down Syndrome

* Duane Syndrome

* Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

* Epidermolysis Bullosa

* Familial Dysautonomia

* Familial Mediterranean Fever

* Fanconi Anemia

* Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva

* Fragile X Syndrome

* G6PD (Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase) Deficiency Anemia

* Galactosemia

* Gaucher Disease

* Gilbert's Syndrome

* Glaucoma

* Hemochromatosis

* Hemoglobin C Disease

* Hemophilia/Bleeding Disorders

* Hirschsprung's Disease

* Homocystinuria

* Huntington's Disease

* Hurler Syndrome

* Juvenile Retinoschisis (X Linked)

* Klinefelter Syndrome

* Krabbe Disease

* Leber Congenital Amaurosis

* Leukodystrophies

* Lipid Storage Diseases

* Long Q-T Syndrome

* Macular Degeneration

* Marfan Syndrome

* Marshall Syndrome

* McCune-Albright Syndrome

* Menkes Disease

* Metabolic Disorders

* Microphthalmus

* Mitochondrial Disease

* Mucolipidoses

* Mucopolysaccharide Disorders

* Muscular Dystrophy

* Neonatal Onset Multisystem Inflammatory Disease

* Neural Tube Defects

* Neurofibromatosis

* Niemann-Pick Disease

* Noonan Syndrome

* Optic Atrophy

* Osteogenesis Imperfecta

* Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome

* Phenylketonuria (PKU)

* Polycystic Kidney Disease

* Prader-Willi Syndrome

* Progeria

* Pseudoxanthoma Elasticum

* Ptosis

* Rentinitis Pigmentosa

* Scheie Syndrome

* Schizophrenia

* Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID)

* Sickle Cell Anemia

* Skeletal Dysplasias

* Smith-Magenis Syndrome

* Spherocytosis

* Spina Bifida

* Spinocerebellar Ataxia

* Stargardt Disease (Macular Degeneration)

* Stickler Syndrome

* Tay-Sachs Disease

* Thalassemia

* Treacher Collins Syndrome

* Tuberous Sclerosis

* Turner's Syndrome

* Urea Cycle Disorder

* Usher's Syndrome

* Velocardiofacial Syndrome

* von Hippel-Lindau Disease

* Werner Syndrome

* Williams Syndrome

* Xeroderma Pigmentosum

* XXX Syndrome

* XYY Syndrome

[alextemplet]

there is no way you can say the genes that cause cancer are not harmful

Yes there is; I just explained it. Care to point out where I went wrong?

[biohazard]

Current human evolution is atypical and standard natural selection doesn't necessarily apply.

Modern medicine allows people with harmful disorders (asthma, diabetes, etc) to live long prolific lives, and pass their genes on to the next generation.
In a more "natural" setting, these people would die much sooner, leaving no offspring or severely damaging the fitness of their offspring.

In a broader sense, I suppose you could say that the fitness benefits gained from our increased mental capacity far outweigh the other accumulated genetic disorders. In which case NS still applies to humans, just in a very broad abstract sense.

Uhh, I'm pretty sure natural selection still applies to humans. It's good, though, that you mentioned "in a very broad abstract sense", because if you truly want to understand natural selection, you must look things in a broad sense. Just because natural selection looks more straightforward in, say, flatworms than in humans does not make humans immune to it.

It is true that humans with their brains have changed the situation on a small scale (e.g. what happens now; you can live with conditions that would have killed you just a century ago and still have children). But if you look at the situation after 100 000 years, you are very likely to notice that people with "good" enough genes to survive in their given environment did so and their genes got passed on.

Humans are not so different after all. We use technology to overcome our disadvantages, but there are animals also that use tools and there are myriads of species that need symbiosis with one another in order to survive: they just do what we do: use external aids in their fight of survival and procreation.

Just like Canalon earlier said, terms "harmful" and "beneficial" when talking about different traits of an organism are very treacherous in the context of evolution. Evolution just "deals random cards" and we just must make use of what we happen to get. Something that today is very useful can be disadvantageous in the future. Natural selection doesn't aim for anything beneficial and many seemingly harmful traits tag along. It's just the sum of this combined with your current environment (including whatever culture, knowledge or technology it may contain) that matters.

If the environment stayed constant without any change (including your sources of nutrition and predators), then, by the laws of natural selection, "beneficial" traits should constantly increase and "harmful" ones decrease in numbers. But the world will never be like this.

Maybe if we one day manage to transport our consciousness and our "self" from biological substrate (i.e. DNA) to some artificial one (e.g. silicon), then we may actually be free from the laws of natural selection.

[biohazard]

you are abusing language

there is no way you can say the genes that cause cancer are not harmful

and as such there being transmitted and common invalidates NS

If some gene is harmuful when you are 80 years old (e.g. something that causes cancer), it doesn't mean it is exclusively a bad gene. Many oncogenes, for example, are genetic control elements that have an important role in the life and development of an individual. If you removed them, you would die as a fetus. So can you really call a gene that allows you to become an adult and have children a harmful gene? It may become harmful later on for sure, but it has already done its good deeds. Also it is worth noting that often these harmful genes have simply mutated during the individual's life and become malfunctioning. Evolutionary it is not very disastrous if you die of cancer at the age of 80, if the gene that caused your death was useful the years before that.

You posted a long list of genetic disorders, but do you actually have any knowledge about them? Vast majority are either recessive genes, which pretty much lessens the evolutionary pressure to eliminate those genes, or are genes that only cause disease if combined to other mutations and/or environmental agents, which again means that just a proportion of these genetic elements get eliminated from the gene pool. On a long run they just aren't deleterious enough to disappear completely - if viewed on a species level. Finally, some of the conditions are caused by point mutations, deletions, chromosomal translocation or invertion, and as such are results of random events on a genomic scale. They are not inherited from anywhere, and because they cause lethal diseases, get also eliminated by the means of natural selection.

It is important to remember that natural selection does not aim to produce anything "good" or remove anything "bad". It just chooses individuals that have good enough means to surive and prosper in their current environment. There are dozens of examples of this: e.g. very large animals seem to benefit from their size (very few or no predators for example), but the size is always a trade-off - they are also the ones who suffer the most if food becomes scarce, they are slow to mature and thus have less offspring, which in turn makes them evolutionary "slow" to react to environmental changes.

So as you hopefully see from that simplified example that there rarely is anything good or bad in the nature, there are just things that either make your species survive, or slowly kill it off. Pretty much all those genetic diseases you mentioned are evolutionary almost irrelevant. There are much more powerful forces driving species development (e.g. nutrition, infectious diseas, predation) than a couple of random mutations that now and then kills an individual of the species.

Also, you kind of shoot yourself in the leg with that genetic disorder list you copied somewhere, because for example the sickle cell anemia you mentioned there is a school book example of the failure of your reasoning: as a heterozygous form it is actually beneficial in certain areas of the world because it protects from malaria, but is disadvantageous in other parts of the worlds due to a degree of anemia it causes. The malaria is worse than the anemia it causes, so in malaria regions the allele that causes the condition is much more common than anywhere else. So here we clearly see that your reasoning that bad genes should simply go away and good ones become more common fails.

[gamila]

”natural selection, a process that causes helpful traits (those that increase the chance of survival and reproduction) to become more common in a population and causes harmful traits to become more rare” (Ref: Futuyma, Douglas Evolution 2005

this prove NS wrong as genetic disorders are common when NS says they should be rare or less common
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/su ... 738782_ITM



Publication: Genomics & Genetics Weekly
Publication Date: 25-MAY-01

2001 MAY 25 - (NewsRx Network) -- New research indicates that a vast majority of children admitted to hospitals have a genetically determined underlying disorder.

The study, led by a pediatrician and medical geneticist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found such disorders accounting for more than two-thirds of all children admitted to a large full-service pediatric hospital over a one-year period.

Moreover, regardless of reason for admission, children whose underlying disorder had a strong genetic basis tended to be hospitalized longer, with charges for their care accounting for 80% of total costs.

The new findings and their potential implications were presented April 30 to the 2001 Pediatric Academic Societies and American Academy of Pediatrics joint...

[biohazard]

Aight, let's try this one more time.

Every single one of us has a genetic defect of some sort.

That already explains why you can find a lot of genetic elements that are potentially harmful when studying hospitalized children. You could take any population, and still find plenty of these same genes.

That being said, serious genetic diseases are rare, and the most serious genetic disorders are very rare - completely in line with natural selection; the more serious a given disorder is, the less likely it is to affect an individual. There are some exceptions to this for well-documented reasons, but a clear trend can be seen: colour blindness is relatively common, because it is almost harmless; Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a rare disease - even though it is common among lethal genetic diseases, you see people suffering from this rarely. And why is that? Because it is such a serious illness, that it has become extremely rare in the gene pool, and only female carriers pass it on. And the reason for it is that it's an X-linked disorder so they are basically unaffected.

So it all works in a perfect logic if you look at the whole picture. Mild disorders are fairly common, serious ones rare, and lethal ones extremely rare. Just like the chapter you keep quoting says.

Our genes aren't "perfect". They aren't immune to mutations, so even if natural selection would eliminate all "bad" mutations, new ones will emerge, and unless they kill the individual or make them unable to reproduce, they stay in the gene pool as long as the individuals carrying them manage to compete in the "evolutionary race".

There will never be a perfect set of genes, because the genes we have are never completely up-to-date. Natural selection instantly removes only genes that are lethal on early age or make reproduction impossible. All else comes along and dies off slowly, and during that time new mutations occur - some poor, some beneficial in their current environment.

Already the mere rate of mutation alone means that there are always genetical disorders among any given population. It has nothing to do with natural selection not working. To the contrary, mutations are the tools that give new substance for natural selection to take place.

[gamila]

”natural selection, a process that causes helpful traits (those that increase the chance of survival and reproduction) to become more common in a population and causes harmful traits to become more rare” (Ref: Futuyma, Douglas Evolution 2005

there are many genetic diseases which are common some occur in about one in every 200 births-which according to NS should be rare

http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/270/G ... rders.html

There are more than 6,000 known single-gene disorders, which occur in about one in every 200 births. Examples are cystic fibrosis, sickle-cell anemia, Huntington's disease, and hereditary hemochromatosiss

Some of the most common chronic diseases are multifactorial in origin. Examples include heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, diabetes, and cancer.

The science of genomics relies on knowledge of and access to the entire genome and applies to common conditions, such as breast and colorectal cancer, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease. It also has a role in infectious diseases once believed to be entirely environmentally caused such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV, which is the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome [AIDS]) infection and tuberculosis. Like most diseases, these frequently occurring disorders are due to the interactions of multiple genes and environmental factors.

[biohazard]

Yep, keep repeating those chapters.

One in 200 leaves you 199 healthy individuals, so what's the problem? And even of those genetically ill children, most are not affected until at old age, can cope with their condition well enough to have children, or do not express the disease at all (common with multifactorial diseases).

I don't believe you are as thick as you try to look like, so please read my previous post again with thought - it explains all that you quote in this one.

[canalon]

”natural selection, a process that causes helpful traits (those that increase the chance of survival and reproduction) to become more common in a population and causes harmful traits to become more rare” (Ref: Futuyma, Douglas Evolution 2005

there are many genetic diseases which are common some occur in about one in every 200 births-which according to NS should be rare

To make things simple, you do not understand what you are quoting. The part that should be bolded is what is in brackets, the definition of helpful (and by opposition of harmful). In fact a gene that would cause you an incredibly painful and slow death but will simultaneously considerably increase your fertility would be extremely helpful evolutionary speaking, while you as an individual would probably disagree.
Take Huntington's disease: it is dominant, lead to an early death (in the 40's or 50's) that is not even quick and painless. It looks bad. However, since the symptom do not appear before 40 or 50 year old, most human will probably have had kids and raised them before any symptoms are visible. As a consequence, this gene do not reduce the chances of your genes to be passed on the next generation. There is very little evolutionary pressure for this gene to disappear.
Another example: Sickle cell anemia, caused by a simple mutation in the gene coding for the hemoglobin. If the 2 copies are mutated it is a debilitating disease. But one copy and you can live quite normally (providing you avoid mountain climbing and extreme diving) and even have protection against malaria. This last trait is highly desirable and hence the mutated gene is found at high frequency in African and Mediterranean populations. Because the benefit for the heterozygous are so much more than the cost for the homozygous.

In conclusion, start reading more than just a few chosen quotes on evolution to realize that it is much more complicated than bad are excluded, and good are conserved. Because right now you are not bringing anything to the debate, and you are making a fool of yourself for showing that you do not have an inkling of understanding on what you are talking about. Some of the books the quotes have been extracted from are actually quite good. Gould is really nice to read, Dawkins is quite an extremist in evolutionary theory, but he knows what he is talking about, and what he says is worth thinking about. Plus he knows how to write too and research. Much better than what was offered in the original text.

[gamila]

It really is very simple in the light of the evidence the position of the evolutionists/darwinists is untenable - not colin leslie dean dean is not a creationist

NS is s very simple formulation

”natural selection, a process that causes helpful traits (those that increase the chance of survival and reproduction) to become more common in a population and causes harmful traits to become more rare” (Ref: Futuyma, Douglas Evolution 2005

the cambrian explosion shows NS is wrong

. No real progress has been made by evolutionists since Darwin’s day and "The Cambrian evolutionary explosion is still shrouded in mystery." (Eldredge, N., The Monkey Business, 1982, p. 46.)

For example the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history

and

the the fact that harmful genes are transmitted and are common or not rare shows NS is wrong

There are more than 6,000 known single-gene disorders, which occur in about one in every 200 births. Examples are cystic fibrosis, sickle-cell anemia, Huntington's disease, and hereditary hemochromatosis

ew research indicates that a vast majority of children admitted to hospitals have a genetically determined underlying disorder.

The study, led by a pediatrician and medical geneticist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found such disorders accounting for more than two-thirds of all children admitted to a large full-service pediatric hospital over a one-year period.

i think the case is closed
the evidence is out there and copious to show NS is wrong as colin leslie dean has shown

[alextemplet]

Gamila, I would like to point out to you that most of the people that have presented arguments against your claim have biology degrees themselves, and I think at least one of us here has a doctorate. I myself am a lowly undergrad bio student. My point is that your claim is based on the word of person who has plenty of nice degrees but not one of them has to do with science. Thus, you are taking the word of an amateur. If you can provide something from a real scientific journal, perhaps we will take you seriously.

For that matter, it is also obvious that you yourself do not understand what you are talking about, as you have not satisfactorily answered even one of the questions presented to you. I am still waiting for you to explain what was wrong with my previous analysis of oncogenic genes and natural selection. In fact, all you have done is provide quotes taken out of context that you clearly do not understand, and you have not offered any explanations of your own. And by now you are to the point of repeating statements that have repeatedly been shown to be false by several people.

Why don't you go ahead and provide us with some serious evidence and explanations as to why you think the theory of natural selection is flawed? If you can't, then I suggest you sign up for a freshman-level biology course at your nearest university so you can learn why what you have presented so far is mere gibberish.

[gamila]

The fossil record had caused Darwin more grief than joy. Nothing distressed him more than the Cambrian explosion, the coincident appearance of almost all complex organic designs

And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history

“The Cambrian explosion has generated extensive scientific debate. The seemingly rapid appearance of fossils in the “Primordial Strata” was noted as early as the mid 19th century,[6] and Charles Darwin saw it as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection.[7]”
NOTE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion

“Charles Darwin considered this sudden appearance of many animal groups with few [b]or no antecedents to be the greatest single objection to his theory of evolution:”

thus we have at the cambrian period are rapid speciation-

now
go read dean