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To: AndyJackson

Not true. Not all DNA changes are evolutionary. Although my DNA and my mothers DNA are almost 100% identical, there are slight differences. These have no attribution to evolution. Mendelson's experiments on genetics did not prove evolution, it only proved variation. Life, on a genetic level has great variety, a trait in no way connected to evolution. Therefore my DNA differences from my ancestors is not evolutionary but diversionary. Evolution comes when a species changes genetically on a grand scale. Such as that fish that crawled out of the ocean to become a reptile. Or When small ancient horses grew into the large beasts they currently are. That is evolution. So, in conclusion, you are incorrect. Small changes in DNA are in no way evolutionary.


822 posted on 09/14/2006 8:44:42 PM PDT by phoenix0468 (http://www.mylocalforum.com -- Go Speak Your Mind.)
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To: phoenix0468; AndyJackson; Coyoteman
Not true.

True, actually.

Not all DNA changes are evolutionary.

Actually, they are, in the sense in which the word is used within biology. If you meant they aren't "evolutionary" in the layman's sense of the word that is similar to "revolutionary", then you have a point (i.e. not all genetic change produces big dramatic differences), but within biology and genetics any change of the genome across generations is, by definition, evolutionary change -- it's evolution. But not all evolution is big and splashy and dramatic.

Although my DNA and my mothers DNA are almost 100% identical, there are slight differences. These have no attribution to evolution.

They do, actually. There are three kinds of differences between your DNA and that of your mother's: First, the novel mutations which occurred during the process of making your genome (i.e., the mutations which are new in you, of which there are roughly 10-30 according to various studies). Second, the recombination (sort of a "shuffling") which your mother's DNA underwent as it produced the egg which eventually became you -- this causes even the chromosomes you got from your mother's side to be "mixed-and-matched" differently than any of your mother's own chromosomes. And third, the half of your DNA you got from your father, which is obviously going to be different than the DNA you got from your mother.

All of this results in changed DNA in you relative to that of your parents. And this too is evolutionary change, since it produces genomes in the next generation which differ from those of the prior generation.

Mendelson's experiments on genetics did not prove evolution, it only proved variation.

Variation itself produces evolution, albeit a slow and aimless kind unless selection (natural or otherwise) is also involved in the mix.

Life, on a genetic level has great variety, a trait in no way connected to evolution.

Actually, it is very much connected to it. There is no evolution of any degree (large or small) without variation.

Therefore my DNA differences from my ancestors is not evolutionary but diversionary.

Again, your DNA differences are a component of the "big genepool picture" by which evolutionary change is assessed.

Evolution comes when a species changes genetically on a grand scale.

You sort of have it backwards -- genetic change on a grand scale produces speciation, but that doesn't mean that non-grand evolutionary change is not evolution at all.

People tend to *think* of speciation and other more dramatic examples of evolutionary change when they think of "evolution", but that's the accumulated "end product" of large amounts of "little evolution" over long periods of time.

Such as that fish that crawled out of the ocean to become a reptile.

Well, amphibian, anyway -- reptiles came later, from the amphibians, not from fish.

Or When small ancient horses grew into the large beasts they currently are. That is evolution.

So were the smaller genetic steps by which the small ancient horses worked their way up to being large beats eventually.

So, in conclusion, you are incorrect. Small changes in DNA are in no way evolutionary.

*cough*

You should probably read this: What is evolution?. Here's a quote from it, taken from one of the leading textbooks in evolutionary biology:

"The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."
Here's a longer but more comprehensive introduction to the topic: Introduction to Evolutionary Biology.
861 posted on 09/14/2006 10:17:05 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)
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