Why evolution is true

[Maeght]

A question about camouflage: how does a camouflaged creature know where it should hide to avoid being detected?

Really? They live in an environment. If one animal has genetic modifications which mean they blend into the environment more than another then they have a greater chance of passing on that modification to subsequent generations, hence the modification becomes established. Evolution in action. They don't know about it, although of course instincts and learning can help them use their camouflage. A strange question.

[wigginhall]

I used to see mountain hares in winter coat, when there was no snow, and they stood out like a sore thumb.  I suppose spud wants to know why they don't evolve on the spot!   Well, they lose their winter coat, clever eh?

[SteveH]

A question about camouflage: how does a camouflaged creature know where it should hide to avoid being detected?

The camouflage is adapted to its natural habitat.

[ippy]

A question about camouflage: how does a camouflaged creature know where it should hide to avoid being detected?

You're doing a good job of being a pretend dip stick Spud.

Regards ippy

[Spud]

It doesn't.

You don't have a clue about any of this, do you?

The indications are that it does. But we don't know how it knows, according to this scientist:

"One intriguing puzzle remains: how do the lizards ‘know’ how camouflaged their own backs are to a bird against a particular rock?"

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/lizards-camouflage-themselves-by-choosing-rocks-that-best-match-the-colour-of-their-backs

[Spud]

You only need to look into the evolution of the Peppered moth Alan, all science, no Mr Magic Pie in the Sky man needed or necessary I've added a link for you.

It'll be interesting to see how your written gymnastics department struggles to insert the god idea of yours into the frame.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution

Commiserations Alan, ippy

It's a variation in the amount of melanin, like races of people have. It doesn't add anything new to the genome, so is not evolution in the microbes to man sense.

[ippy]

It's a variation in the amount of melanin, like races of people have. It doesn't add anything new to the genome, so is not evolution in the microbes to man sense.

What an empty stupid response, aren't you supposed to be qualified as some sort of scientist?

Even that pope bloke accepts evolution as a fact.

ippy

[Stranger]

The indications are that it does. But we don't know how it knows, according to this scientist:

"One intriguing puzzle remains: how do the lizards ‘know’ how camouflaged their own backs are to a bird against a particular rock?"

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/lizards-camouflage-themselves-by-choosing-rocks-that-best-match-the-colour-of-their-backs

From the same article: "This is the first result of its kind in wild animals, and in lizards specifically" so it isn't applicable to the peppered moth (the context in which you asked the question) and other instances of camouflage.

As to how; "one theory is that it is under genetic control, while another possibility is that it develops in early life through learning from other lizards and from experience".

It's a variation in the amount of melanin, like races of people have. It doesn't add anything new to the genome, so is not evolution in the microbes to man sense.

Ilik Saccheri, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Liverpool, UK, and his colleagues have used molecular genetics to show that one mutation from a single ancestor causes increased dark pigment, called melanism, in the typically light-coloured moth. Their results are published today in Science.

-- The peppered moth's dark genetic past revealed

[Spud]

Ilik Saccheri, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Liverpool, UK, and his colleagues have used molecular genetics to show that one mutation from a single ancestor causes increased dark pigment, called melanism, in the typically light-coloured moth. Their results are published today in Science.

-- The peppered moth's dark genetic past revealed

Mutations do not add genes. If all life came from microbes the number of genes must have increased, but mutations never result in new genes being added.

[jeremyp]

"One intriguing puzzle remains: how do the lizards ‘know’ how camouflaged their own backs are to a bird against a particular rock?"

Easy, if they get eaten they know they were not well camouflaged. If they don't get eaten they produce lots of little lizards with the same or similar camouflage to themselves.

[jeremyp]

Mutations do not add genes. If all life came from microbes the number of genes must have increased, but mutations never result in new genes being added.

That is absolutely false.

Mutations frequently add new genes. For example, it is not uncommon for genes to get duplicated and once duplicated, the second copy is free to mutate further without killing the organism.

Furthermore, the creation of new genes has been observed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

The most striking adaptation reported so far is the evolution of aerobic growth on citrate, which is unusual in E. coli, in one population at some point between generations 31,000 and 31,500

[ippy]

Easy, if they get eaten they know they were not well camouflaged. If they don't get eaten they produce lots of little lizards with the same or similar camouflage to themselves.

Yes j p, it's that simple and I believe Spud is supposed to have some sort of science qualification?

Regards ippy 

[Stranger]

Mutations do not add genes. If all life came from microbes the number of genes must have increased, but mutations never result in new genes being added.

Who told you that? You can get new base pairs added and you can also get parts of the sequence duplicated that can then itself be subject to mutation. For example, that's how tricolour vision evolved in primates.

See:
The evolution of trichromatic color vision by opsin gene duplication in New World and Old World primates.

[BeRational]

Actually, when you consider the TOE, it's the one you sort of think "I could have come up with that"

It seems so obvious.

[Enki]

Mutations do not add genes. If all life came from microbes the number of genes must have increased, but mutations never result in new genes being added.

The most common way for a new gene to evolve is for an existing gene to be duplicated. Once there are two or more copies, each can evolve in separate directions.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13673-evolution-myths-mutations-can-only-destroy-information/

[Maeght]

Just a reminder of an earlier quote from Spud 'I don't think I have intelligence for evolutionary genetics.'

[SteveH]

Mutations do not add genes. If all life came from microbes the number of genes must have increased, but mutations never result in new genes being added.

Is this the usual "mutations don't add information" bollocks we get ad bloody nauseam from fundies? If so, may I refer you to the well-attested phenomenon of polyploidy?
Read this.

[Spud]

Who told you that? You can get new base pairs added and you can also get parts of the sequence duplicated that can then itself be subject to mutation.

Just making sure you were all awake.

If you want to make microbes into man, you need the duplicated genes to perform new functions.

I have a TV that produces sound and a picture.
I want it to play a DVD too.
I go and buy another TV, hoping that using just the parts from both I can make one that can play a DVD.

[Stranger]

Who told you that? You can get new base pairs added and you can also get parts of the sequence duplicated that can then itself be subject to mutation.

...

If you want to make microbes into man, you need the duplicated genes to perform new functions.

That's what the second part of my sentence that you quoted covered and the example I linked to. You'd also do well to look at the link Genial Harry gave in #291: Claim CB102

I have a TV that produces sound and a picture.
I want it to play a DVD too.
I go and buy another TV, hoping that using just the parts from both I can make one that can play a DVD.

Idiotic comparison - from some creationist site, I assume?

[Spud]

Just a reminder of an earlier quote from Spud 'I don't think I have intelligence for evolutionary genetics.'

I have come to the conclusion that it isn't my intelligence which is at fault, but the nature of the subject. You are claiming that normal physiological processes (mutation etc) are able to change microbes into men. It's utter crap and enough to give any sensible person a brain haemorrhage. Knowledge of these processes is useful but in this case has been misapplied, and is therefore what I would describe as "fake news". So as far as I am concerned, you can all sit down.

While I think of it, I found out why the retina is wired back to front, it is to do with glial cells concentrating light onto cone cells and enhancing colour. Stranger's link about opsin reminded me.

Anyway, that's enough genetics for me, although I'm always interested to read about it from a non-microbes-to-man-evolutionary point of view. This is good:

https://bigthink.com/daylight-atheism/evolution-is-still-happening-beneficial-mutations-in-humans

[Stranger]

I have come to the conclusion that it isn't my intelligence which is at fault, but the nature of the subject. You are claiming that normal physiological processes (mutation etc) are able to change microbes into men. It's utter crap and enough to give any sensible person a brain haemorrhage.

"It's utter crap", such an eloquent and logical argument!

A great deal of science is highly counterintuitive but I imagine that you don't have the same reaction to General Relativity (time and space can distort) or Quantum Mechanics (particles can be in more than one place at a time) because those don't so directly conflict with your favourite superstition.

Of course if you're of the young universe persuasion, then you have to disagree with lots of science that has nothing to do with evolution.

You never did answer the question as to why you think you know more than pretty much all of the experts in the relevant fields. I do urge you to read The truth about evolution - he disbelieves in evolution too but at least he has the honesty and integrity to admit that it is purely a matter of faith.

The truth is that you don't know better than the experts (you don't seem to know much about the subject at all), the evidence is beyond any reasonable doubt and you are choosing to disbelieve entirely due to your faith. That's your choice but you should have the honesty to admit it.

[Maeght]

I have come to the conclusion that it isn't my intelligence which is at fault, but the nature of the subject. You are claiming that normal physiological processes (mutation etc) are able to change microbes into men.

I am claiming nothing. The vast number of people who are qualified in the subject and work in the field are making the claims which are supported y a huge amount of evidence. I accept this.

It's utter crap and enough to give any sensible person a brain haemorrhage.

Personal incredulity personified.

Knowledge of these processes is useful but in this case has been misapplied, and is therefore what I would describe as "fake news". So as far as I am concerned, you can all sit down.

Why should your opinion count for anything?

[Spud]

The fact that the eye is wired up wrong way round, the nerves running across the surface of the retina before plunging through a hole - the blind spot.

Our image of the world is detected by photoreceptors, lying at the bottom of the nearly-transparent retina. Lateral neural layers for processing the image temporally, spectrally, and spatially come in front the photoreceptors, not behind them. This reverse order is a long-standing puzzle, which we wish to explain. We found out that cone photoreceptors are attached to metabolic Muller cells which span the retina. Cones provide colour vision at day time, and are surrounded by sensitive rods which function at night. We showed by an analytical and a computational method that the M\"{u}ller cells also serve as fibre optics, concentrating green-red light into the cones, while the excessive blue is scattered to the nearby rods. Spatial and spectral laboratory measurements validate that indeed the shapes and refractive index values of the Muller cells and the surrounding retina separate the colours according to the spectral sensitivities of both cones and rods. These results also explain other effects of vision acuity and colour sensitivity.
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR15/Session/S47.2

"It's utter crap", such an eloquent and logical argument!

A great deal of science is highly counterintuitive but I imagine that you don't have the same reaction to General Relativity (time and space can distort) or Quantum Mechanics (particles can be in more than one place at a time) because those don't so directly conflict with your favourite superstition.

Of course if you're of the young universe persuasion, then you have to disagree with lots of science that has nothing to do with evolution.

You never did answer the question as to why you think you know more than pretty much all of the experts in the relevant fields. I do urge you to read The truth about evolution - he disbelieves in evolution too but at least he has the honesty and integrity to admit that it is purely a matter of faith.

The truth is that you don't know better than the experts (you don't seem to know much about the subject at all), the evidence is beyond any reasonable doubt and you are choosing to disbelieve entirely due to your faith. That's your choice but you should have the honesty to admit it.

The above evidence seems to contradict what experts were thinking about the eye (that it's poorly designed). When it comes to duplication and mutation we are given lots of examples of changes in pre-existing biochemical pathways to help organisms adapt. For example, a large increase in melanism, which in the peppered moth may have been caused by a duplication in a gene for melanin such that it enabled the moth to become completely dark instead of speckled. This is believable but when we look for the particular insect which the moth evolved from, we find that "The origins of insect flight remain obscure, since the earliest winged insects currently known appear to have been capable fliers." (wiki) This supports the view that while allowing adaptation of organisms to environmental change, genetic modification is not able to build complex structures such as wings.

[Maeght]

How does it support that view?

[Harrowby Hall]

Spud seems to take the view that we see with our eyes. If he had any understanding of neuroscience he would know that the eye is is the receptor of light-based information and that the processing of visual information takes place in - among other locations - the visual cortex in the occipital lobe of the brain.

The brain is our organ of vision, it perceives and creates our understanding of the world. Our eyes are merely cameras.