An element of evolution

has the idea that various genetic change may occur merely due to the interbreeding of a species?

because i was thinkning.. they often refer to the catalyst to evolutions being a 'random mutation' but this makes no sense and is portrayed very badly to the antoi-evolution people.

wouldnt it be more likely that some traits simply changed over time until the animals found new ways of using those body parts and then further evolution would have taken place?

for example, a rhinoceros, or its predecessor.. would have just been a species which had grown a large enough nose to fight with (simply the nose getting bigger over time until it happens to be big enough to fight with, without hindering its original use), and once this was so, the horn would have evolved out.

because whats to say tehre isnt an inherit mutation that is constantly occuring, in certain species or animals

of course there are some species that have stood the test of time. but maybe their inherit genetic deviation is detrimental because they are their best evolutionary stage (for natural survival) and any change owuld be unproductive. or maybe some species simply do not experience this deviation, or maybe there is another force acting apon this deviation so that while it is dependant on its environment, it is a different process to that of conventionally understood natural selection and adaptation and the like.

so yeh whats the deal with this

 

I'm not quite sure what you're asking. Traits are not acquired or lost based on need. If a horse can't reach the apples in a tree, it's young won't have longer necks. Unless, of course, it is mutated that way. If a species is perfect and any change would negatively affect it, the individuals with that change will be at a disadvantage, and will have a harder time surviving or reproducing.

 

well, it stands to reason that the taller horses, that were better able to reach the apples would get to eat more, and be healthier from it.

therefore standing a better chance in survival of the fittest, and having the chance to pass along their tall genes to their offspring.

 

I reckon that the "alien encounter" theory better explains the sudden appearance of fully evolved species than evolution or creation by 'god', mainly because of the huge time spans involved over which fully complete diverse and new species and genus' consistently appear.
Both creation and evolution seem inconceiveable
My 2c's

 

ok none of you got what im saying

i thought the rhino example was very clear

evidently, before a theoretical rhino creature had a horn on its ose, it would have had to have something that has the same use that a horn would. rhinos use it for hitting and fighting. (and courtship but thats different)
a horn does not just randomly start growing from an animal with no horn because the animal with no horn would not be using his nose to fight with.

and so im saying perhaps some species had a normal nose which then started growing bigger for some ungodly reason, and when the nose was big enough to fight with, then it would have developped into a horn.

now i realise that rhinos evolved from other creatures that already had things on their nose, thats irrelevant.

now the growing of the nose in the first place couldnt have been for fighting purposes, because if they had a normal nose then they wouldnt use it for that in the first place. and the horn could not have just grown out of nowhere.

so somehow there was a process that led the nose to get bigger, or for them to start using their noses as weapons to then bight with.

this could be one of two things that i am throwin in here. either it evolved through natural selection for some other reason. or it was simply the result of interbreeding a speciest for al ong time, that the overall species nose got bigger, for no reason other than the inherit result of their genes mixing again and again

do you see what im saying?

 

I think so. But evolution doesn't come from need. It's random. However, some hornless rhino may have already had the gene for a horn (YOU might already have a gene for a horn, who knows?), but it may not have been activated. Or this gene may have randomly developed, and out of a hornless mother came a horned baby.

The confusing thing about evolution is that it's more absolute than you think. For example, there probably weren't steps of increasingly long necks leading up to the modern giraffe. There was probably one gene that gives the animal a long neck if it's there, and a short neck if it's not. Having half of that gene there won't give it a medium neck. So what probably happened with the rhino is that one animal was born with a horn, and it realized it could poke big frickin' holes in all the other male rhinos, and so mated with a disproportionately large number of females and passed on its horn gene to a disproportionately large number of offspring. And these offspring had the same advantage the first one did, and so probably drove down the numbers of hornless rhino until they were extinct, and every rhino now contained this allele for a horn.

 

nar man, thats where people misinterpret evolution, things dsont work like that. no ranom mutation has ever occured that has benefited the creature enough that it mated so much to change an entire species

the thing thats stupid is that people who disprove evolution are like 'theres no in between step'

well obviosuly unless there were fossils from every point in history, then there arent gonna be a fossil of every step of evolution.

genes arent as simple as 'horn gene'

the horn gene would be a mix of many genes, from the genes that produce the horn from beneath to the genes that create the process of turning food into horn proteine/bone, and the gene that says how long the horn will grow etc

most 'dominant' or 'recessive' genes affect the rate that something happens or a change that effects many parts of the body, like an albino is still a human, but they have a lower rate of pigmentation (zero) in skin, and hair, and eyes etc. there is no recessive gene that produces a whole new system of the body, just ones that change the way the body produces its own chemicals.

there would have definately been increasing size of neck. but that would have been, for example when giraffes realised taller knecks would help them get food (not like a human realisation, just a general understanding of a trait leading to more food) then the long neck giraffes would have been hotter than the short necked ones.

one rhino with a horn cannot tackle an entire species


another idea is that evolution may have occured when animals were close to extinction, caus then this idea of extremes suddenly taking over would make sense.

but not in some random manifestation of a trait.


genetic research is hard becuase of the fact that each trait is not simply connected to a gene but a whole gene sequence and positioning of the gene, etc. otherwise scientists would have created heaps of wierd creations by now like glow in the dark monkeys. that they tried but failed becaus they simply implanted the gene into the same place of the monkey, ignoring the faact that the genes all work together.

some genes will obviosuly be simpler than others, such as the colour of hair or eyes. but a put a whole new gland into a creature is a completely differnet thing alltogether

 

I'm inclined to agree with FreakerSoup. He is a bio major, so he's well aware of what you're trying to say - I assume that he tried to break it down to layman's terms because he's not sure where everyone stands in their knowledge of biology on these forums.

 

well he can now explain it in full and show me where im wrong

 

I don't think one random spontaneous mutation could evolve so quickly as to establish complete species as quickly as reasoned.
Once again, the "Alien Intervention" (gene splicing) is more logical than evolution and more likely explains the "Gods" & "Angels" who walked the earth, and upon which religion depends.

 

yeh that theory is pretty neat. but its sort of like.. theyve got everythign we know.. and created an explination of it

it would be awesome if it was a true idea

what i dont buy is how they think the aliens rotate the sun on a planet far far away.

i dont think the aliens would do that, thats an unneccessary assumption based simply on the time frames between encounters.


but the alien encounter one onyl explains humans doesnt it?

well im sue theres many alien encounter ones

the one i liked best was the one where they created humans


personally i think if there were aliens.. theyd actually be much simpler life forms to humans and designed animals on our planet to be more complex than they. theyd just be smarter than us. maybe caus they supposedly live so long.

anyway back to evolution topic!

 

I agree with the fact that alien visitation certainly would explain things like Atlantis, civilizations that mysteriously vanished (see amazing video game: Timelapse), and encounters with gods, demons, and angels.

But that still leaves the question of where the aliens came from. And the fact that we can see evolution happening around us. If aliens did interfere with our planet (thus violating the Prime Directive, those bastards), it was only to accelerate evolution. (You know, some people say that mitochondria are alien.)

 

evolution isnt supposed to happen quickly, neither is mutation... its a long process.. anyone who says differently is maleducated. Evolution has so much proof to it, those who adamently object to it need to take a phys anthro class, it'll teach them a lot.

Punctuated equillibrium and genetic mutation are enough to explain new species.

In fact, evolution has been PROVED... aids is a living example of fast-paced evolution... the disease rapidly changes based on what it has to fight... you can see evolution work right in front of your eyes.

The only reason that evolution hasnt been considered anything more than a theory, is because christians refuse to accept it, or educate themselves about it.

But like everything else christians have been wrong about, the truth will come in time... give it a few 10-20 years, and evolution will be considered fact, not theory, and once more the church will change to conform to society so it can continue ammassing wealth, power, and controlling peoples minds.

 

thanks mui but you didnt really contribute to the thread content

 

The thing about human mitochondria is that all mitochondrial DNA is from the female, while every other cellular component is a combination of male and female DNA. NOw that's peculiar, given that x & Y chromosomes are essential for cellular division to take place, but not so in the mitochondria which is the energy center of every living human cell. Thuis fits in with the alien gene splice theory in that the god to whom creation was attributed to mesopotamians and egyptians (distant precedents of judaism) was female, ie "the goddess".
So who's to say that while the aliens were mucking around with genetics and life that they didn't stop with humans. It makes sense that if they were playing genetics, they'd play the field. And that may explain the spontaneous appearance of fully complete species without trace of evolutionary trends.
Makes sense to me

 

Fine than, if by interbreeding you mean incestial breeding, than yes... that does cause genetic mutation, usually that mutation is a life threatening illness... I dont think any new species could come from incestial breeding because it would die out quickly... unless you mean something else by interbreeding.

If you mean cross-breading, than that too causes genetic mutation..
Theres actually a fish called a Parrot Cichlid... no one really knows where it came from, or what fish originally it was compromised of... people have their guesses, but this fish is so weird that people have a hard time explaining just what it was...
It was created in a lab in asia, where theyve been testing cross breeding species for a long time... and after a while, theyve finally created this new species of Fish.
Even just by looking at it, you can tell its a weird fish... its dumber than other fish, you can tell by owning one.

Further proof of evolution

 

"...
PASADENA, Calif. -- A close flyby of Saturn's big moon Titan by the international Cassini spacecraft revealed an upper atmosphere brimming with complex organic material, a finding that could hold clues to how life arose on Earth, scientists said Monday.
...."



http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=Cassini Titan

 

Good point Trotsky311. It brings to mind the idea expressed by Terence McKenna that life may be galactically "seeded" in a way similar to the way mushroom spores distribute by infinitely fine currents. Spores such as mushrooms easily withstand deep-freeze and vacuum conditions, so such forces as solar magnetic winds or even light pressure could distribute species life spore throughout galaxies over vast aeons.
Since I was a kid I reckoned that praying mantis' looked like some kind of space-creature, and I can't for the life of me comprehend how such diversity of life "evolved" & eventually mutated from a few complex chemicals in a swamp.

 

Heh...like the Preservers in Star Trek.

 

You have to take into account that it had 4.6 billion years.