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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (448)	8/17/2000 9:27:58 AM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

I should point out that I am not a professional biologist but a software engineer and therefore you could say evolution is a hobby of mine (although information reproduction theories in general are an important part of my profession). Perhaps you can cite an experiment where this expectation was realized?? That's an easy one to carry out yourself. Go to a small town and get an idea of how much people look alike, you can pick physical characteristics or adornments. Then go to a bigger town or city and see how much additional variation is to be found. Ideally you should do this more than once and study exceptions as well as typical patterns (For example I would expect the variation pattern to be reversed if you picked a small town in Israel and the relatively large city of Rejavik Iceland - Why?) Evolution does not lend itself well to active experiments. One of Darwin's greatest achievements was to create a framework of scientific study of evolution instead of an atmosphere of speculation. Instead of actively trying to change species (a process called Artificial Selection) the usual method is to examine various fossils and make a prediction about future fossils that have not yet been found. The prediction should be able to predict not only a lot about the fossil characteristics, but the specific layers and locals where the fossil should be found. (Then they get a grant and start digging). The recent advances in gene sequencing has opened a whole new area of study. : What is the ratio of novel genes to ordinary genes, in any given population mix, and is it a fairly reliable constant? It is fairly reliable for special cases. The main special case is michrondrial DNA. The michondria is a cell within a cell found in all animals and the genes of the michondria do not mix during sexual reproduction. All michondria are supplied in the female egg, and so the only way for michondrial DNA to change is by mutation. The gene mixing during sex for the rest of the DNA overwhelms any effect from mutation, so the michonria are used to "calibrate" the mutation rate for a species. I would not expect the rate to be the same for all species but I don't really know. Another interesting special case is the whip-tail lizard of Austrailia. This species has given up sex (but not foreplay). There are only female whip-tail lizards. Periodicly two lizards will get each other excited and one will become spontaneously pregnant and deliver a daughter which is basicly a clone of the mother and any differences are due to mutation not sexual variance. I'm already married I need to remember to put smilies after my jokes :o) TP