Serious question about Evolution?

Question

In multicellular organisms(specifically of the Kingdom Anamalia), how did random mutations create input systems(senses) and difference engines(brains, or their primitive equivalent)? If the mutated individual is to benifit from a sensory mutation such that it was more successful at producing offspring, would it not require some sort of difference engine to interpret and act on the incoming messages? Inversely, how would an individual benifet from a mutation that produced a crude semblence of data processing(the odds of such an occurance are quite remote, I might add), if it did not posess any sort of sensory system, including nerve conections?
The only way these would benifet an organsim would be for both "brain" and senses to apear simultaneously in not only the same species, but the same individual. How is such a statistically improbable event possible?

Tonalk1
Please be more specific to the hypothesys behind the develpment of intelligence and sensory inputs.

Ecolink, I am not talking about a simple probabiltity such as stepping on a pebble, which can be simply calculated by:

(area of footstep)*(number of footfalls)/(area of ground with pebble)

If you input values into those variables

(1sq foot)*(1,000,000X)/(33,800,000,000sq feet[about athousand square miles])0

You get aproxamitley 1 in 3 million chance that the pebble will be stepped on. However, with enough footfalls, it will eventually happen. I am talking about odds like 1 : 10^500.

10^500 was merely an abstact conjecture based on the idea of both brains and nerves being created simultaneously in the same individual(obviously, that didn't happen. I am not suggesting that evolutionary theory suggests it does, either.)

What I want to know is how Brains and sensors started(original mutation which was benificial).

Primitive Brains Sensors - a primitive jellyfish can tell up from down or night from day and respond in an apropriate manner.

SecretSauce has finally started to answer the question. He said that yes, one can be benificial without the other.
I wanted to know how a centralized processor could be useful without sensory input, and visa versa.

I seem to be drawing alot of flack for critisizing
tonalk1's copied and pasted answer. I think it is a vague reference to the general evolutionary theory based on small, useful changes being conserved and enhanced over time. My question was specifically about sensory input and brains, the main point being that I do not understand how a very simple mutation could produce a benificial "ancestor"
of a brain or input system. What woul such a simple set up look like? How would a creature benifit?

Answer 1

Because God created us. :DDDDDD

Answer 2

tonalc, ecolink, and jon all gave very good answers.

jon is correct to challenge your 10^500 number ... the fact that we can't really put a number on the improbability of the event is precisely the problem. It is not enough to say "I believe it is highly improbable, therefore I will choose an arbitrarily huge number out of a hat." How do you even begin to put a number on something you can't describe (the minimal configuration required to constitute some advantage ... is it one brain cell and one sensory cell sufficient? 1000 of each? What is the probability of a single sensory cell? Can a centralized processing be useful without senses? (Ans: yes.) Can senses be useful without a centralized processing? (Ans: yes.)

Your example of the jellies is a good one. Jellies can hardly be considered to have a brain, or even a "primitive brain sensor." There is no centralized processing of the photosensitive cells that detect light from dark and turn the jelly in the correct way.

Heck, even plants can do that. They have photosensitive cells that detect light, and the plant can respond accordingly. But nobody believes that the plant has any sort of centralized nervous system.

Answer 3

You confuse mutation, which is random and natural selection, which is not. Look to the evolution of the eye. From an eye spot in a creature that had an radiant nervous system, instead of a brain. To the marvel that sits in our head. Gradual accumulation of beneficial mutations coupled with the proper selection pressure. Nothing appears simultaneously, but incrementally in populations; not individuals. Populations are their gene pool. Your statistical analysis smacks of creationist reasoning; both in the time sense and the " simultaneous " appearance reasoning.

PS What are you talking about? Tonalc I gave you the proper site. Perhaps you are here under false pretenses.

PSS 1: 10^500!!?!??!! How did you come up with this calculation? And you do not explain organisms who are fully sensed, but without what could be termed a " brain ".

PSSS That original mutation is beyond me, but look to HOX genes for an original mutation that was then selected and highly conserved from then on; in all animalia morphologies. Some things we can reverse engineer; if they are successful and highly conserved.

Final note. It seems Don has given you an interesting paper to read; do so.

Answer 4

Statistical improbabilities become more and more probable when the time involved increases. Evolution has time. If I start at one point and walk blindfolded for a mile, what are the chances that I will step on a particular pebble a mile away? Not likely. But if I do that day after day after day, and my children and grandchildren continue, then it becomes more likely.

Now if I reach blindfolded into a basket full of numbered marbles and take the same walk, what are the chances of me stepping on the pebble when I am holding marble number 289. Even less likely. But given no time limit, it's hard to imagine that it wouldn't happen sometime.

Answer 5

There's a big difference between "statistically improbable" and "impossible."

Chance plays a part in evolution (for example, in the random mutations that can give rise to new traits), but evolution does not depend on chance to create organisms, proteins or other entities. Quite the opposite: natural selection, the principal known mechanism of evolution, harnesses nonrandom change by preserving "desirable" (adaptive) features and eliminating "undesirable" (nonadaptive) ones.

As long as the forces of selection stay constant, natural selection can push evolution in one direction and produce sophisticated structures in surprisingly short times.