What's the difference between variation and evolution? Are you referring to Genetic Drift within a population vs genetic variation including new codes?
I had to think about that one for a bit. Germ as in germinating sperm and ovum.
Exactly correct.
The question is how does that get transmitted to the sperm and Ovum before that? How does this edit occur? What are the conveyors?
Mutations which occur in body cells (which generally do nothing, but in a worst case scenario result in cancer) do not transmit to germ cells. Only mutations which occur in germ cells or in the first few stages of blastula development will propagate across an entire individual's cells - as a result of all of that child's body cells being a copy of the originating zygote or blastula cells. The farther int he development process a mutation occurs, the fewer cells in the final individual will exhibit the mutation.
I don't agree because it's not simply a matter of getting passed on.
It's a matter of said gene surviving.
You stated that a faster reproductive rate, such as found in insects and smaller mammals would help a gene survive. How?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation
"Mutation can result in several different types of change in DNA sequences; these can either have no effect, alter the product of a gene, or prevent the gene from functioning properly or completely. Studies in the fly Drosophila melanogaster suggest that if a mutation changes a protein produced by a gene, this will probably be harmful, with about 70 percent of these mutations having damaging effects, and the remainder being either neutral or weakly beneficial.[4] Due to the damaging effects that mutations can have on genes, organisms have mechanisms such as DNA repair to remove mutations.[1]"
An important distinction: "if a mutation changes a protein produced by a gene". In that case, then, yes, most are harmful. Note that it 70% are harmful as noted in that link, the remaining 30% are either neutral or positive. Those 30% are generally going to be what we are talking about in discussions of evolution; negative genetic mutations will likely not help the individual, and due to the forces you've mentioned before, will result in the earlier death or the lower productive output of the mutated individual, reducing the survival of the mutant gene in the population.
"Therefore, the optimal mutation rate for a species is a trade-off between costs of a high mutation rate, such as deleterious mutations, and the metabolic costs of maintaining systems to reduce the mutation rate, such as DNA repair enzymes.[5] Viruses that use RNA as their genetic material have rapid mutation rates,[6] which can be an advantage since these viruses will evolve constantly and rapidly, and thus evade the defensive responses of e.g. the human immune system.[7]"
I agree with this completely, but I don't see how it backs your original claim. The level of DNA error checking varies between species, and sometimes a faster mutation rate is more useful than better error checking. For a layman introductions to real-world examples, check out "The Evolution of Aging"
acknowledged I think the confusion is between observed natural mutations and induced mutations.
What's the difference?
In order for DNA polymerase and its helper enzymes to do error checking, it has to have something to check its work against. If it creates a sequence of nucleotides randomly, how could error checking occur?
It doesn't work randomly, but instead moves along an unzipped DNA sequence, matching up the existing strand to the new strand it is creating. If it makes a mistake, it can immediately go to the original strand, the "template", to check itself. If the template has a mutation, then the new copy will reflect that error - there's no way for the copy mechanism to know that the code int he existing strand is wrong, so it treats it as correct.
You miss understand, sir.
I don't not seek accreditation. I do not desire status in your system. I never will. Your views are your own and you have them for your own reasons.
These are not my "views". This is how genes work. It is no more my view than my stating how levers work.
Those agendas are aside from my continuing search for the facts and the truth. If I were to allow my rational mind to descend to popular opinion then there is no use in having my own mind is there? I would have your mind or someone else..I'd be a copy, a clone, subjugating my intelligence by means of the blind faith of credibility. This is a fascinating discussion lets not presume your goals of being viewed favorably reflect my own.
You're effectively saying that you reject macroevolution because you refuse to learn more about how genetics works?
