Do you like how Dawkins, Hitchens et al. represent atheists?

Yes, but throughout evolution of a species they are not fixed. Only in the individual.

Unless a mechanism is 100% effective against mutation there is going to be a mutation at one time or another. Wether this mutation is carried over to the next generation is another story. Most mutations will be fatal or offer a disadvantage, but some do offer an 'unsuspected' advantage at some point in time. The gene will then be selected upon within the population.

If the 'protected genes' you are talking about really existed a species could not evolve into another species. You appear to be subscribing to some form of creationism.

 

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I disagree. Dawkins holds his opinions tentatively, with the knowledge that they might not be correct. I have no doubt that if he is proven wrong on any point, he would admit it, and revise his future work accordingly.

The point of all of this isn't to displace religious dogma with some other form of dogma. That would accomplish nothing. "Scientificness", a new religion that deals with dissent by persecution and torture? No.

The hope and the goal, is to teach as many as can be taught to not hold opinions rigidly; to change your mind when you are proven wrong, rather than attack the messenger, and try and destroy the inconvenient evidence. To avoid the seduction of believing in things because you would like them to be true, and instead have the self discipline to only believe in things for which there is credible evidence. To realize that arguments from authority are worthless, and wisdom from the ancients should be respected only if it is truly wise.

 

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I disagree.

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It's the condition of fixed genetic values at multiple loci responsible for inducing the typical construction of a species. It's unrelated to environmentally induced mutation, so long as mutation doesn't affect it.

 

Yeah and my car is blue unless its another color.... :bugeye:

 

Nooooo, what I'm saying is that there is a fixed set of genes which produce the basic body form of "snail". Variation within that body form is probably from another set of genes; these constitute quantitative trait loci, or QTL; those genes which cause minor deviations in phenotype.

Oooh, I like my theory. Probably been done already tho.

 

GeoffP, since you seemingly decided not to answer to my previous posts ill ask you this:
How did the snailform arise if the genes for the basic bodyform are immutable ?

 

I think you are confusing persistence with design.

 

Seems to me he is some sort of creationist. :shrug:

 

I think we are dealing with a human characteristic rather than a religious one.

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Forming groups with competitive ideologies and dissent between them is very human. I believe ignoring that is dangerous. I also believe, outside of religion there are very few bonds that tie strangers to each other.

 

He's an atheist and an evolutionary biologist. He's just fascinated by concepts, is all. Mostly he's a pineapple

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No, in the members of the species to the extant point; that is, today. "Snailness" is not an individualistic phenomenon to a single snail.

No, really? Of course mutations will occur; where they cause radical deviation from the archetypal body plan, my Gouldian friend, they form Goldschmidt's "hopeful monsters", depending on the size of the mutation. This doesn't detract from my point that there epistacic (not epistatic) genes responsible for "snail" or "human".

That was laughable. Pick up an evolutionary textbook, please. I am not a creationist.

What exactly does this have to do with the points I'm making?

 

Oy vay.

They aren't immutable, Gould-boy. They are occasionally exposed to mutation; but rarely. Saltation is possible; but probably rarer than the accumulation of allopatric differentiation.

Happy, slappy?

 

No. No one designed the genes for "snailness" or anything else. It's you who are attributing design to my arguments; I am not postulating any kind of watchmaker.

No. Seems to me you've yet to crack a textbook open, or think about evolution.

Pineapple?

 

I never said any such insulation was 100%.

 

Sorry I flipped out. I take developmental epistacy very seriously.

 

I think GeoffP is totally wrong.

 

You are great at insults... :bugeye:
You suggested these genes were immutable, while they cannot be.
If the genes are not immutable whats your point ?

 

Yes, I think he is suffering from developmental stasis.

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Is that Mendelian or biometric?

 

You be quiet or I'LL START TYPING IN ALL CAPS.

No, I stated that these genes are necessary to achieve the normal species form, and probably thereby fixed. (As in: monomorphic.) This is Fisher's developmental epistacy, and a concept I agree with. They should be only rarely mutable; less so than those coding for mere variation within type, because mutations in the latter only lead to quantitative change by line, whereas mutations to structural (you like Gould? huh? huh? spandrels, then) types might result in massively altered phenotypes that don't look like the type species which, I remind you, the hopeful mutant is going to have to breed with. This is partially or largely an old hat discussion.

I apologize for insulting you.