Atheist: Is there any way your children can inherit...?

Question

other new genes apart from your own? At least a new gene to evolve? Anything new to show signs of evolution?

Can you simply answer the question please

Answer 1

Perhaps someone needs to sit down with you and explain this sex thing. You seem to have missed one of the most important parts.

Answer 2

Umm... yeah.

It's called sex. Apparently you think atheists are the only ones who have it.

The offspring of sexual reproduction between two organisms inherits half of their complement of genetic traits from one parent, and half from the other. This combination provides a unique combination of characters that is not matched even if the two organisms reproduce again.

This variability of genetic diversity between generations is what evolution acts upon, through mechanisms such as natural selection.

There are several ways that 'new' genes can be introduced into the process. The most obvious and famous being mutation. Errors in transcription, environmental damage or other factors can cause a change in the transcription in one or more genes between parent and offspring. In most cases, these mutations are benign or harmful, but once in a rare while, the mutation may end up with a change in performance that actually enhances the survival and reproduction characters of the offspring compared to those without the mutation. This advantage is then passed on to that organisms offspring, and the gene enters the general population of that organism.

Answer 3

I'm not an atheist, but I this can be answered by either an atheist, agnostic or theist:

Those new genes are generally described as "mutations", in genes. Yet these mutations done, is theorized to have been the only way we have came to be humans today. In the theory of evolution; the ones with weaker genes are killed off by "natural selection", simply because they are not strong enough to survive.

Answer 4

Evolution doesn't happen in a generation, not even 100 generations, it takes millions of years for something to actually evolve to a point where you can notice it. the evolution humans are probably going through is our immune system. our genes are ordered randomly and are mixed with out partners genes when we have children so it increases the chance of a good immune system.
hence why no two people have the exact identical DNA (with exceptions to identical twins) because it keeps viruses and bacteria guessing.

Answer 5

evolution happens over thousands of yrs, so the next generation will not have significantly different genes. the only other thing i think you may be talking about is gene mutation? not sure. give the great wise wikipedia a go is all i can suggest, sorry, but hey! at least i didnt take the piss out of your question nor pick on your spelling!

Answer 6

Genes randomly mutate. If the new gene fits better, it goes on to be reproduced. The gene that does not fit as well dies out. As you look around you will see this actually happening. The webbing of human feet; virus and bacteria mutating to defeat counter-measures. and so on.

If you study the development of business in the USA or the evolution of weapons and tactics in warfare, you will see a direct comparison.

Answer 7

New genes generally take millions of years to develop through mutation. Having said that, there is a lot of recessive genes out there.These genes show us traits that we possessed millions of years ago that indicate an evolution beyond their usefulness.

Either that or they are a trick by Ol' Scratch.

Answer 8

The combination of genes from the mother and father can always create something new, to a point. Often these combinations are fatal (leading to miscarriage early on) or genetic disorders later in life.

additionally there are mutations.
Very large mutations are rare, but mutations are ubiquitous. There is roughly 0.1 to 1 mutation per genome replication in viruses and 0.003 mutations per genome per replication in microbes. Mutation rates for higher organisms vary quite a bit between organisms, but excluding the parts of the genome in which most mutations are neutral (the junk DNA), the mutation rates are also roughly 0.003 per effective genome per cell replication. Since sexual reproduction involves many cell replications, humans have about 1.6 mutations per generation. This is likely an underestimate, because mutations with very small effect are easy to miss in the studies. Including neutral mutations, each human zygote has about 64 new mutations (Drake et al. 1998). Another estimate concludes 175 mutations per generation, including at least 3 deleterious mutations (Nachman and Crowell 2000)

Answer 9

To "inherit" means to get something from the parents in this case. Since you used that word, I would say NO, a parent can only pass down their own genes to the offspring.

Truth is, if you were honestly interested in a REAL response, you'd have posed this in the appropriate section. Instead, you posed it under Religion, which gives you away - youre interested only in trying to stump others. Do you see me posting questions about how to fix my car in the Beauty and Fashion area? Then why post a science question under religion?

Answer 10

Yes. During crossing over events in meiosis, it is possible for new hybrid genes to be formed. Duplications and mutations can produce new haplotypes. Viruses can produce gene insertions. The genome is fairly dynamic.

You don't have to be an atheist to learn genetics.

Answer 11

Well, my children obviously wouldn't start with ONLY my genes, their mother would play a part...

Aside from that, yes, they'd start with just our genes, but mutations are common enough that their genetic code would be pretty variable. (Some geneticists estimate that, because of mutations, there are six or seven different DNA sequences inside everybody.)