[extropy-chat] Re: intelligent design homework

[ben]

"A -particular- mule is produced by some mutation.  One animal.  It's
important that we're clear that -one animal- is required here, not
millions of years of animals, but ONE ANIMAL that can no longer mate
with members of its parents' species."

This is not how it works.
You are quite correct that this scenario is extremely unlikely. This 
doesn't mean that evolution is incorrect, it means that that's not how 
evolution works.

"This mutation, despite it disrupting the genetic structure of the 
animal radically..."

The vast majority of mutations that 'radically disrupt the genetic 
structure' (by which i assume you mean mutations that have a large 
effect on an organism's ontogeny or on it's physiology) are lethal. The 
ones that aren't lethal tend to be small changes, even tiny ones.

Here's a different - and much more likely - example:

A - particular - organism is produced by some mutation. One animal (or 
plant or bacterium, etc.). Just one, no problem.
The mutation does not mean that it's incapable of mating and producing 
viable offspring with others of IT'S SPECIES (yes, it's still the same 
species). When/if it does mate, the particular mutation is passed on to 
it's offspring. Note that i haven't said that it's a beneficial or 
harmful mutation. It is, of course, a non-lethal one. It doesn't even 
have to be a dominant trait, in fact, it's probably better if it isn't.
The mutation could be something like a minor variation in the gene for a 
subunit of haemoglobin, making the complete molecule have a greater 
affinity for oxygen at some particular pH, or in the presence of some 
other substance, a micronutrient maybe.

Imagine this sort of thing happening millions of times in a population 
of some animal. No breeding problems, no dramatic changes.

Then, one day, something does change. Maybe the climate, maybe some 
change in the creatures' predators, or it's food, or, well, just about 
anything.

This produces a selective pressure. The various combinations of all 
those accumulated genetic changes mean that there is a lot of variety in 
the kinds of reponse that the members of the population can display. 
Some of them will be less able to survive, some better able to. Some of 
them might wander off to somewhere else where the conditions are the 
same as they were before. The individuals that are less fit in the new 
environment will do poorly, the ones that are more fit will do better. 
After a number of generations, the population will be slightly different 
that the starting population. Their genome will be different. Maybe just 
slightly, maybe quite a bit.

After this happens enough times, the population will not be able to 
interbreed successfully with the starting population, or, more 
accurately, with the descendants of the starting population that 
wandered off and stayed more genetically similar to it.

This is not the only way evolution works, just an example of one way. 
Sometimes things are more dramatic. Usually they are more complicated, 
involving collections of genes that form a king of 'functioning unit', 
or interrelated networks. But the thing i'm trying to point out is that 
the 'mule' idea is almost totally irrelevant to how evolution works.

A million monkeys with a million years. Yes, exactly. Can you see how 
it's easy for a million monkeys with a million years to turn into a 
bunch of guys banging rocks together? Because it is. It's very easy.
And a few billion prokaryotes with a few billion years going spare will 
turn into giraffes and redwood trees and crocodiles and giant condors.

The rats example suffers from the same problem as the mule idea. Massive 
overkill. Why do you want to irradiate them "enough so that its eggs are 
a chromosome short"? (not that i have a clue how that could actually 
happen, but i'm going with the spirit of the argument here). What you 
are saying is "let's irradiate these rats so much that they are dead or 
sterile or incapable of producing viable offspring. Oh, look, dead rats! 
So much for evolution, then".
If you want to see evolution at work in rats, expose them to a low-level 
background radiation (something like that found on the surface of the 
earth for example), and a selective pressure of some sort (sub-optimal 
levels of a rat's essential amino acid, or such. I don't know much about 
rat's dietary requirements, but you get the idea), and see if we get any 
unusually healthy rats after a while.



"Obviously, if it exists, God created it or created the thing that 
created it, or created the thing that created the thing, etc."

Doh. Just read that.
OK, sorry to have wasted your (and my) time.

ben

PS One - just one -  question, i can't resist it: What created god, then?