What would our daily lives lack had the theory of evolution never been articulated?

Yes, because I still can not find a serious paper supporting your peculiar definition of evolution.

And everyone can notice that you just ignored the mosquitoes resistance example and cite, that is a good example of taking evolution into account to get the upper hand with malaria.

I didn’t ignore it, I missed it.

GIGObuster, if you think it’s “evolution” regardless of whether a genetic mutation was involved somewhere in the process, then you are talking about something other than the modern theory of evolution, hence, no cite I provide will satisfy you.

But this sounds like an attempt to separate natural selection from evolution, once again a very peculiar point to make. The point remains that just because a gene is present it is not correct to just say that that is not evolution.

Yes, an example of natural selection of an existing gene, ie, the “dark moth” gene, which was already present, because there were already dark moths in existence.

Natural selection is not evolution, it is one part of the theory of evolution.

From your own source:

Not buying that, your lack of a cite and now just protesting that you did not notice, (but also **still *not bothering to deal with it) just points to an attempt to avoid the issue. And showing that you do not even know how to point to a cite that supports your position is now raising red flags. The point here is that I also need to learn where this idea is coming from as repeated searches show more reliable cites that agree with me. Otherwise I will have to dismiss your points as there is no support for them.

*They still call it evolution.

GIGObuster, your own source is telling you that genetic mutation is a part of our modern understanding of evolutionary theory.

So allow me to link straight back to your own source and re-state the quote:

To para-phrase:

It’s evolution when:

  • Genes mutate
  • Natural selection of those genes occurs
  • Evolution!

What the hey, another cite just for you.

From here:

The point was that you can not also say that when gene was already present that is not evolution:

Yes, I know, that’s why my post was an example of a situation where the mutation happened simultaneously with the change in environment to see if that is what Ahu Ha was getting at. It wasn’t clear why Ahu Ha thought an already present gene that was beneficial given a specific environment was not considered part of the evolution process.

I don’t think I posted anything that can be mis-construed as implying it is anything but random chance, did I?

Yes I can. You are talking about natural selection, which is not evolution.

If random genetic mutations don’t occur, then you can royally kiss the theory of evolution a sweet, wet goodbye. It’s gone.

:rolleyes:

I should had bet $1000 that it was from creationists were those ideas where coming from. (and I pointed out I suspected that before).

Yes, there is a point on getting to know where ideas are coming from. And I will just point out that this is evidence that you were pretending to know this subject.

:smack:

That’s what I get for posting the first link I click.

Here’s a non-creationist cite for you:

I understand, it’s 2 separate questions.

My post was an attempt to determine why you appeared to think that change due to a gene already existing (in this case being benificial in a new environment) was not considered evolution. So I constructed an example of an alternative in which the gene appeared simultaneously with the change in environment to see if you were only considering those scenarios to be evolution.

I see your posts in which you point out that you don’t consider the single step of “selection” to be the entire “evolution” process, but you then apply that logic to an example (drug resistance) in which all of the normal steps of evolution occured, which doesn’t follow.

Which of those 2 steps do you think did not occur in the drug resistance example?

A genuinely probing question here because I don’t know the answer.

How do we “know” that genetic mutation occurred in the cases of drug-resistance? Was the mutation observed? Was the gene sequence responsible for the resistance, isolated, and found not to be present in the ancestors?

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Drug resistance is a great example of evolution. To those complaining that the genes must have already existed in the population, that’s the main way that evolution works! Random mutations accumulate over long periods of time, dispersing through the population. Many mutations never make a whit of difference and end up carried along as so much baggage and eventually overwritten by some other mutation. For other lucky genes, there’s a selection pressure that helps them proliferate widely enough to take up permanent residence. Sometimes this selection event is so strong that only the creatures with those genes survive.

Another important concept in drug resistance is horizontal transfer. If each species had to individually evolve to fight each new drug, our antibiotics would be a lot more effective. Instead, bacteria are constantly swapping genes (whether through plasmids or the help of viruses) and acquiring resistance to drugs they’ve never actually encountered. Antibiotics are such a losing battle right now that pharmas are reluctant to pursue them. When used widely, even entirely new classes of drugs meet resistance within months or years (especially if cross-marketed for agricultural use).

Understanding evolution is critical to the future of microbiology and medicine. Microbes evolve much much faster than humans. We cannot win out in a direct mutation contest, and we don’t see nearly as much horizontal transfer action. If the current tactics and trends continue, we’re going to return to the ages where minor surgery patients regularly die from infection. However, by managing the evolution of the infectious agents (e.g. reducing virulence by reducing exposure rates, using vaccines and narrow-spectrum antibiotics designed to only target harmful strains) and managing our own microbiome (symbiotic organisms / pro-biotics that both help us and crowd out interlopers, and maybe even bacteriophages), we can survive.

Why does it need to be not present in it’s ancestors?

We “know” it was produced by random mutation because we “know” that’s how all of the genes got here.

It may have been randomly created 3 million years ago and was essentially neutral all of this time until now when it is beneficial, this is still considered evolution despite the 3 million years in between mutation and beneficial use.

Because then it wouldn’t be evolution. Somewhere along the ancestral line, the gene has to not be present.

Right, well, case closed. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

True, but if you can’t demonstrate the mutation, the you can’t know that it wasn’t always present, right?