We can share the worms as well as the beetles so they will be our worms and our beetles. I do not have any problem with the worms looking similar but having substantially different genomes. It could have arisen via micro evolution or some other means a long time ago.

Suppose the following (and I am no means proposing this as truth or the way it happened so no one say that this is what I believe:)

Each worm had the same common ancestor, another worm with all the genes of both. Then two separate sub populations broke off and over time lost part of their genome which included the genes in question, They had 90 million years to devolve in such a way. I am not aware that there is any genetic principle that prevents a species from losing part of its genome over time. All the controversy is over whether it can gain any.

(Now the Darwinist would say that each had the common ancestor but that each sub population separated and then added the genes in question over time through macro evolution processes. Nothing supports that this is possible so I prefer something similar to mine.)

And if none of these genes affect the morphology of the worms then they could look and act alike today. I have no idea if this is true but we could ask some evolutionary biologist if such a scenario was possible.

My assessment of what has happened in general is that there is much of a chunk of life that is a mystery as to its origins. However, until micro evolution is ruled out, I am going to defend it for most of our beetles and hypothesize that they are descended from some population of beetles that existed a long time ago and through separation, environmental pressures and selection numerous sub populations developed until we now have 350,000 species.

My guess this number is way too high and the only difference between many of the species is the voluntary inter breeding, That is they could breed but won’t for a variety of reasons. And because of this they are listed as separate species. I also do not believe anyone could really check this many different beetles out so the actual number is an estimate.

I believe the evidence supports such a scenario for most individual species but will have to wait for the genomes to be mapped till we see just how varied they all are and see how they could have evolved or a better word is devolved from an original gene pool.

Now many will not agree with such a scenario but to me it sounds the most reasonable based on what we know today,

I hope you didn’t resent my “your beetles”. It was just friendly irony. I am quite happy with “my worms”, anyway.

But let’s get serious. In brief:

I was not making a point about genetic entropy. As you have noticed, I don’t get too much involved on that subject. In general, I believe in the principle of genetic entropy and in the intelligent control in genomes as a measure against it, but I am not too sure about the details.

I was trying to make a point about the huge differences at genomic level even in apparently almost identical species. That, in my opinion, is a sign of independent design even at the species level. And I am sure that it would be even more clear with “our” beetles.

Obviously, it is possible that those differences are just a sign of neutral mutations, but do you believe it? More than a thousand different protein coding genes?

I agree with you that there are a lot of things we don’t understand, and many more we are discovering daily. I was just suggesting that the differences between similar species are just one of those things, and that they are not easily explained by microevolution models.

Anyway, I will certainly go back to my worms in the future. They are at present the best known model of multicellular organization we have. C. elegans is the only living being of which we know practically each single cell and nervous connection!

No Evidence?

It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of naturally occurring mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them to be detrimental to the organisms in its job of surviving and reproducing, just as changes accidentally introduced into any artificial mechanism are predominantly harmful to its useful operation” H.J. Muller (Received a Nobel Prize for his work on mutations to DNA)

“Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity change shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations leads to speciation.” (Lynn Margulis – Acquiring Genomes [2003], p. 29).

“But there is no evidence that DNA mutations can provide the sorts of variation needed for evolution… There is no evidence for beneficial mutations at the level of macroevolution, but there is also no evidence at the level of what is commonly regarded as microevolution.” Jonathan Wells (PhD. Molecular Biology)

“The neo-Darwinians would like us to believe that large evolutionary changes can result from a series of small events if there are enough of them. But if these events all lose information they can’t be the steps in the kind of evolution the neo-Darwin theory is supposed to explain, no matter how many mutations there are. Whoever thinks macroevolution can be made by mutations that lose information is like the merchant who lost a little money on every sale but thought he could make it up on volume.” Dr. Lee Spetner (Ph.D. Physics – MIT)

“I have seen estimates of the incidence of the ratio of deleterious-to-beneficial mutations which range from one in one thousand up to one in one million. The best estimates seem to be one in one million (Gerrish and Lenski, 1998). The actual rate of beneficial mutations is so extremely low as to thwart any actual measurement (Bataillon, 2000, Elena et al, 1998). Therefore, I cannot …accurately represent how rare such beneficial mutations really are.” (Sanford; Genetic Entropy page 24)

The fate of competing beneficial mutations in an asexual population (Philip J. Gerrish & Richard E. Lenski)

“Clonal interference is not the only dynamic that inhibits the progression of beneficialmutations to fixation in an asexual population.Asimilar inhibition may be caused by Muller’s ratchet (Muller, 1964; Haigh, 1978), in which deleterious mutations will tend to accumulate in small asexual populations. As shown by Manning and Thompson (1984) and by Peck (1994), the fate of a beneficial mutation is determined as much by the selective disadvantage of any deleterious mutations with which it is linked as by its own selective advantage.”

http://myxo.css.msu.edu/lenski.....Lenski.pdf

Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? (Thomas Bataillon)

Abstract

……It is argued that, although most if not all mutations detected in mutation accumulation experiments are deleterious, the question of the rate of favourable mutations (and their effects) is still a matter for debate.

http://www.nature.com/hdy/jour.....7270a.html

High Frequency of Cryptic Deleterious Mutations in Caenorhabditis elegans ( Esther K. Davies, Andrew D. Peters, Peter D. Keightley)

“In fitness assays, only about 4 percent of the deleterious mutations fixed in each line were detectable. The remaining 96 percent, though cryptic, are significant for mutation load…the presence of a large class of mildly deleterious mutations can never be ruled out. ”

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/...../5434/1748

” Bergman (2004) has studied the topic of beneficial mutations. Among other things, he did a simple literature search via Biological Abstracts and Medline. He found 453,732 “mutation” hits, but among these only 186 mentioned the word “beneficial” (about 4 in 10,000). When those 186 references were reviewed, almost all the presumed “beneficial mutations” were only beneficial in a very narrow sense- but each mutation consistently involved loss of function changes-hence loss of information.”

you asked

“Cite some evidence of large scale genomic improvement and evidence that more species are being created rather than going extinct via Darwinian evolution or micro-evolution in today’s world. Cite some evidence that there are comparable numbers of good mutations to bad ones…..”

All irrelevant questions. I never said there was evidence of large scale genomic improvement. In fact I claim the opposite, there is little if any improvement. Read #131. Do I have to repeat it a zillion and one times? By the way this does not mean there is genomic deterioration nor does it mean that a species can not become more fit over time. I happen to believe that genomes are deteriorating but from micro evolution processes and not genetic entropy. Future genome mappings will either negate this or support this hypothesis.

I do not know how many species are going extinct today but as Dave has pointed out they are due to micro evolution reasons. I think the number is probably exaggerated to day because of political reasons.

How many species are being created? I have no idea but how that relates to genetic entropy, I haven’t a clue. Denton’s book “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis” discusses some examples. And by the way I understand the problem of how does one define a species. The answer is there is no good way.

I have no idea how many good mutations there are but they have little relation to anything I have said. I shall I repeat again that what I say gets distorted. My guess is that beneficial mutations are few and far between. Except for the obligatory ones such as skin or fur color and length, I am at a lost, Maybe you could provide some examples. They have no relevance for much or anything I have said.

I do not know how any of this relates to blind adherence since it is I who am questioning Sanford, not defending him without evidence.

Are you saying that most of the genome is junk or are you saying that on the non junk parts that mutations may not make a difference till many accumulate?

On the first part I believe that there are some junk parts in many species but nearly not as much as once was hypothesized, On these junk parts there should be no limit to the number of mutations that could accumulate since it is just junk. So this will never lead to extinction.

On the non junk parts who is to say that even one so called neutral mutation might not abort the fetus. I have a hard time understanding how a host of these so called neutral mutations could accumulate before causing havoc and aborting the fetus or preventing the organism from having offspring if the part of the genome is essentially to functioning of the fetus or organism. And this would have to happen to all the members of the population.

By the way whatever happened to the large section of the genome that was knocked out and the mice continued to do just fine. Was that section full of a large number of near neutral mutations? I thought it was a preserved section. Isn’t the concept of preservation antithetical to Stanford’s ideas? Whatever happened to all the homologous genes in various organisms that are similar such as the various forms of hemoglobin? How could all these survive with genetic entropy causing random changes in each individual genome of a species or as it seems a whole kingdom. I would think this would be enough to shoot down Sanford.

I will ask you a question about my pet beetles. How did all these species come about? And if there are truly 350,000 of them is it not possible that a few are at the end of the road while the rest of them are fine? If that is the case then isn’t that a refutation of Sanford? And are there other possibilities for this end game for these few unfortunate beetles besides Sanford’s genetic entropy? And are some of these possibilities a continual narrowing of the gene pool due to environmental and selection pressures and maybe even occasional mutations? The last I believe is called Darwinian micro evolution.

I too think that many species are getting “old” but not because of Sanford’s ideas but mainly because they are losing variety in the gene pool. This is a prediction of Darwinian micro evolution and is one of the problems the Darwinists have is that their own theory predicts doom. Their way out is that mutations will add variety over time. Something which I don’t believe has ever happened.

The genetic evidence we do have good record of all points to the same thing, loss of information on sub-speciation and deterioration of species from random mutations.

In the fossil record, there is even record of entire branches of phyla going extinct since the Cambrian. Yet you look around and say “Hey look at all this profusion of life around us and thus Genetic Entropy must be false!” Yet in the very next breath, and I find this a complete disconnect in logic, you say no new information can arise by micro-evolutionary processes.
Well you won’t admit to deterioration of genomes and you won’t claim generation of new information in genomes, so what exactly is your mo^del for biology?

The biological world is doing fine.
…
What I see is blind adherence,

Before you keep accusing me and others of blind adherance, here are some relevant data points you can provide:

Cite some evidence of large scale genomic improvement and evidence that more species are being created rather than going extinct via Darwinian evolution or micro-evoltion in today’s world. Cite some evidence that there are comparable numbers of good mutations to bad ones…..

Then maybe you’ll be a bit more justified in accusing us of blind adherance.

As I said, I find the tone the most interesting thing and that somehow this man’s ideas must be defended at all costs. The main refutation to Sanford is right out your window. The biological world is doing fine. If you think not then you are welcome to your view but you are seeing a different world than I.

You can push Sanford. Certainly that is your prerogative. I will look for what I consider more relevant explanations but I will continue to raise my objections to his ideas as he gets brought up in the future because I have yet to see anything that supports his thesis. The occasional sick species or even the massive number of extinctions in the past are not support. I am always open to new information but have not seen it on this thread so far. What I see is blind adherence,

micro evolutionary processes are the main cause for modern extinction

If by “micro-evolutionary processes” you mean random mutation & natural selection then yes, I agree. When the mutations are predominantly slightly deleterious such that they can’t be “seen” and “eliminated” by natural selection then they accumulate in the gene pool in larger and larger number over millions of years making the species progessively less and less fit. Think of it like individuals that get weaker as they grow older – they get more prone to accidents and disease, eyesight gets worse, bones get brittle, joints get arthritic, etcetera. Species age this way too. Glad you finally saw the light about genetic entropy.

lots of evidence to contradict them.

Say what Jerry? Cite some evidence of large scale genomic improvement and evidence that more species are being created rather than going extinct via Darwinian evolution or micro-evoltion in today’s world. Cite some evidence that there are comparable numbers of good mutations to bad ones…..

So when you bring up the occasional problem with a genome because of mutations you are not talking about genetic entropy.

You brought up the beetles as being fine, and it became evident you didn’t even look to see if they were fine. They are not all fine, and many species are dead….

What was in evidence in the cases I cited was the inability of selection weed out that bad, and that supports the thesis of genetic
entropy by way of micro example. And as far as the large number extinct species, are you saying their genomes are healthy?

The hypothesis might get further confirmation with more exploration. But to argue that there is NO evidence merely because we’ve not sequenced genomes world-wide is wrong headed. There is at least some evidence, and if you’d open your eyes, you’d see there is more. You can’t see it if you just pull examples out the air without even looking….

You then go on to cite catastrophes as a cause for extinction. This is a micro evolution event.

I beg to differ. Darwinian micro-evolution involves competition among individuals such that inherently better traits have the chance to reach fixation. This is known as Phyletic transformation. This competition can not even take place if all the individuals are dead due to a catastrophe. Therefore this could hardly be clasified as micro-evolution, unless one defines it in such a loose way as to be totally meaningless.

And even when individuals compete, genetically superior genomes are not favored that much more than inferior genomes because of random selection.

If the catastrophe caused changes to the genomes through some type of radiation or other contaminant that is not Sanford’s genetic entropy which is caused by the slow accumulation of mutations over time

That’s a strawman, Jerry. Genetic Entropy in sum:

Mutational entropy appears to be so strong within large genomes that selection cannot reverse it. This makes eventual extinction of such genomes inevitable. I have termed this fundamental problem Genetic Entropy. Genetic Entropy is not a starting axiomatic position — rather it is a logical conclusion derived from careful analysis of how selection really operates.

Mutational entropy can be induced by radiation. Sanford does not preclude that possibility. See page 25 for a discussion of what happens when radiation is a source of mutational entropy.

Careful analysis of how Darwinian selection operates shows that Darwinain selection doesn’t work if all the individuals of a population are dead. Duh! Sanford was generous to grant the assmumption that individuals were even alive in the first place so that competition was possible in order to supposedly save the genome.

To try to prove that Darwinain micro-evolution works by citing only examples where it works is like aguing PZ Myers is swell guy except when he’s not. It’s a meaningless statement. There are more examples of where nature does not folow the Darwinain micro evolutioanry model than those that do. Sanford shows theoretically that even in the cases where micro-evolution might work, it won’t in the long run.