Are random mutations the engine of evolution?

Question

For mutations to be the driver of the massive amount of information there must be two things true of those mutations.

1. The mutations must be positive and allow the organism to procreate and pass them on.
2. The mutations must add information to the genome of the organism.

To date no evolutionist has pointed out such a mutation.

Answer 1

no-not random-things mutate -or evolve-because of a response to a set of known criterea

Answer 2

Yes, random mutations do drive evolution. Still they don't need to be 100% positive, they can be neutral and spread through a mechanism known as genetic drift (deriva genética in portuguese, i dont know if the translation is accurate). If they are positive then natural selection assures that they will be passed on.

Coming to the real point of your question, there are several experiments that indicate that benefical mutations do occur. Bacteria resistant to antibiotics for instance, and the gene that cause "Anemia falsiforme" (don´t know the translation to that one, sorry), when in heterosigosis this gene does not cause the disease and is benefical, protecting against malaria. There are many, many, many other examples.
It is believed by evolutionists today that it is a series of small mutations that cause the origin of new species rather then a big one, and that in genes that control very complex carachteristics the dominating factor of mutation is genetic drift, given the difficuty of the occurance of a positive mutation for that carachcter (I hope my english is not to bad).

Well that's it. As an evolutionist and biologist I encourage you to study evolution deeper, not to convince you or anything, it is only that I found this question very good, and if you start studing evolution you will find some really hard ones for evolutionists to awnser.

Answer 3

Mutations are not the whole engine of evolution. They merely provide genetic variation within a species. Most mutations are inherently neutral, but one also has to consider a very minor neutral mutation can become a 'positive' mutation given the right set of environmental circumstances. For instance, if a disease pops up where certain genetic markers makes somebody less susceptible to that disease, those people obviously are going to have an edge over those without said markers. (That's natural selection - the other part of the evolutionary engine.)

Once in a blue moon, you do get a more significant mutation. In some cases it can be negative, and affect the functionality of the organism. In some cases, it doesn't. A good example is the divided womb that some human women have. In extreme cases, it can affect their ability to have children, but there are also cases where a woman with this condition was able to have two children, one in each of the separated wombs. (There was actually one case a few weeks back where a woman had a pair of twins in one of the wombs, and a third child in the other.)

Answer 4

1. No, they don't. Not all of them, anyway. Negative (harmful) mutations are weeded out, because the creature is less likely to survive through to it's breeding age than a creature with no mutation at all, or a positive (helpful) mutation. Not even factoring in sexual selection, here.

2. Why? That doesn't even make sense. A mutation is much more likely to be a *change* in the genome than an addition or subtraction of it. In fact:

mu·ta·tion

1.Biology.
a.a sudden departure from the parent type in one or more heritable characteristics, caused by a change in a gene or a chromosome.
b.an individual, species, or the like, resulting from such a departure.
2.the act or process of changing.
3.a change or alteration, as in form or nature.

Hmm, I see the word change a lot in there, but I don't see the word addition at all. Strange, huh?

Answer 5

Hmm ... a "Harvard-trained lawer" ... isn't that a bit of an awkward place to start for a science authority? People who say that Natural Selection is a sophisticated tautology flat out don't understand it! (That this comes from a non-biologist is no surprise.) It stems from the CARTOON version of natural selection, boiling it down to the phrase "survival of the fittest" which is a handy way of learning about the theory, not the theory itself. Natural Selection is NOT a tautology. It defines a relationship between individual "fitness" and group change. In other words Natural Selection is a *statistical* relationship. It is NOT universally true that all the fittest are better survivors, or all the survivors are more fit. If this were true then the two terms would be equivalent, and they would indeed be a tautology. Natural selection says that there are many many factors that affect an individual's survival and reproduction ... random factors, when you were born, who you met, what accidents you avoided as a child, what potential mates you met. Fitness for the current environment is only *one* of these factors. But over the population *AS A WHOLE*, then those genes that confer a better match to the environment will *ON AVERAGE* tend to propagate. In other words, Natural Selection explains the paradox that static unchanging genes in individuals (individuals die with the genes they are born with), can still produce genetic *change* in the population. That is not obvious. That does NOT derive from the definition of "fitness." That is NOT tautology. ---- The quote from Hugo deVries also fails to understand what deVries was saying. A tell-tale sign of quote mining is when you make an isolate quote from a scientist to support a position that the scientist himself did not hold throughout his life's work. This is a sure indicator that you DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT SCIENTIST or what he meant or concluded from that statement. ---- As for Søren Løvtrup ... sorry, I never heard of him. Based on what I can piece together, he is a Lamarckian. I.e. Løvtrup is a firm believer in evolution, but denies that natural selection explains it. Nevertheless, his hypothesis of "macromutations" suffers from the same problem that sank Lamarck ... an utter lack of evidence. That he has not been taken seriously by the scientific community is not surprising ... and seems to explain the bizarre and unsupported attack on Natural Selection that you quoted (with insufficient detail to evaluate it). So all I see in your post is an anti-Darwin rant ... with no real substance other than the rhetoric of others, with no supporting argument. In short, you somehow think that copying down quotations is making an argument.

Answer 6

Why don't you read up on the subject before you post such a question.

1. Mutations are random. They can be positive or negative.

2. The gonome is modified I don't think you can say anything new has been added. If you have blue eyes and your brother has brown eyes, no additional gene has been added to his chromosomes to give him brown eyes.

In summary mutations are random, but the selection of positive mutations is not random and therefore in general, evolution is not random.

Answer 7

If a mutation has a positive effect that provides an animal with a better chance of survive and procreate, it does, passing the genetic ibformation to it's offspring. If a mutation has a negative effect, the organism may have less chance of survival and to proceate, causing the organisms with that mutation to die out. Thus we have natural selection and survival of the fittest.

Answer 8

Nothing random about it. Simply the diversity of genetic range within a given species.

You don't actually KNOW anything about Natural Selection, do you?

Oh, I'm sorry, am I a baritone in the chorus of insults?

Answer 9

Actually benefical information adding mutations are well documented.

Two classics two refute your two points:
1. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/20/11388
2. http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/15/8/931

Answer 10

The word Random suggests that God is not in control. I believe God to be in control of all things at all times. God lets something change in a particular organism but not the entire population of that kind of organism. So what we call random is really God at work in the one that does not suggest that there is an evolutionary process. God allows something to happen in one particular organism just as God allows things to happen to humans individually.

Matt