Right, and as long as there are small things changing over time (though there's no hard barrier to relatively big changes over time either) then why would it be impossible to end up at a "place" different from where you began?

To put it another way, these organisms weren't heading in any specific direction, but they did find themselves at "flagellum". (tons of hugely interesting and elaborative reasons for why they found themselves at "flagellum" rather than "jet nozzle" or "wheel", btw)

(April 6, 2013 at 12:52 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Right, and as long as there are small things changing over time (though there's no hard barrier to relatively big changes over time either) then why would it be impossible to end up at a "place" different from where you began?

Theoretically, it sounds good on the surface, it seems small changes mean you can always go from point A to point B.

But if in between point A and point B, natural selection cannot possibly be favouring that direction, then we have a problem.

It doesn't have to, it needs only be non-deleterious.

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Think of it this way Mystic. Perhaps right now, this very moment, you possess a mutation that makes you effectively immune to a pandemic disease that has not yet shown up. This mutation isn't doing anything for you right now, but it;s not killing you. If that disease never shows up, we'll never have a phenomenal record of it's existence. But if it does, the mutation will have become what we call an "adaptation"...and when all of the rest of the males die from dick drop off disease (as it will come to be called) then you and your genetics will become very well represented in the surviving population.

If, on the other hand, the disease never shows up, but you continue to pass along this mutation - and it continues to change, there may be a moment in which that mutation has a beneficial effect entirely removed from the resistance to disease it conferred...perhaps it makes you entirely more virile...and here again, your genetics will be very well represented in the surviving population.

(April 6, 2013 at 12:57 pm)Rhythm Wrote: It doesn't have to, it needs only be non-deleterious.

How would the mutation gain popularity as opposed to the non-mutation in the population, to then gain, another mutation, that add towards that direction? You keep getting a series of mutations that make head towards point B, but it's not advantageous at all, all these mutations along the way?

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(April 6, 2013 at 12:57 pm)Rhythm Wrote: It doesn't have to, it needs only be non-deleterious.

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Think of it this way Mystic. Perhaps right now, this very moment, you possess a mutation that makes you effectively immune to a pandemic disease that has not yet shown up. This mutation isn't doing anything for you right now, but it;s not killing you. If that disease never shows up, we'll never have a phenomenal record of it's existence. But if it does, the mutation will have become what we call an "adaptation"...and when all of the rest of the males die from dick drop off disease (as it will come to be called) then you and your genetics will become very well represented in the surviving population.

If, on the other hand, the disease never shows up, but you continue to pass along this mutation - and it continues to change, there may be a moment in which that mutation has a beneficial effect entirely removed from the resistance to disease it conferred...perhaps it makes you entirely more virile...and here again, your genetics will be very well represented in the surviving population.

But in this case,that mutation is favoured by natural selection, it gains popularity due to natural selection.

It doesn't have to, it merely needs to survive. However, there are plenty of ways that a gene might piggyback on the success of things entirely unrelated. Consider a patch of grass and weeds growing in a small right angled box (like a coldframe). Those organisms that get more sunlight (due to shade from the box structure) or moisture (due to overhead cover from the box structure) will have their genetics more widely represented in generations of the future than their unfortunately shaded and sheltered brothers and sisters. Their genetics didn't have to factor in, no advantage had to be possessed or expressed by them. They simply had to survive.

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In the case of flagellum and motile ability - specifically, once you can move...you tend to do better than shit that can't - and that's how that adaptation would present itself. Even if all the mutations leading up to it were benign, but ultimately not conferring any specific advantage.

(April 6, 2013 at 1:07 pm)Rhythm Wrote: It doesn't have to, it merely needs to survive. However, there are plenty of ways that a gene might piggyback on the success of things entirely unrelated. Consider a patch of grass and weeds growing in a small right angled box (like a coldframe). Those organisms that get more sunlight (due to shade from the box structure) or moisture (due to overhead cover from the box structure) will have their genetics more widely represented generations in the future than their unfortunately shaded and sheltered brothers and sisters.

I see what your saying. But that makes sense for that mutation to simply become popular, but not a series of mutations that follow up that are making it from point A (non-turning) to point B (Turning). One mutation fine, two or three, fine, but a whole small series of them, leading towards a complex system, that takes direction and needs that to be favoured in some way or another.

Also it seems you need several parts from non-turning to turning to work in conjunction, but that seems problematic if it's only small changes, so hope you see where I'm stuck at.

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(April 6, 2013 at 1:07 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Even if all the mutations leading up to it were benign, but ultimately not conferring any specific advantage.

This is where we differ. I just don't see how a bunch of parts could slowly be forming towards a turning thing, if there was no advantage, and then all of sudden come together as a system. I rather have it appear to me, that it's not really possible.

Simply stating, this when from A To B then To C, without explaining, why B was possibility advantage, or that inbetween A and B and B and C, all stages were possibly advantageous, seems problematic.

Ofcourse step "C" is obviously advantageous. But it's trivial to talk about that advantage instead of how it was lead to that by advantage.

(April 6, 2013 at 1:11 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: I see what your saying. But that makes sense for that mutation to simply become popular, but not a series of mutations that follow up that are making it from point A (non-turning) to point B (Turning). One mutation fine, two or three, fine, but a whole small series of them, leading towards a complex system, that takes direction and needs that to be favoured in some way or another.

No, it doesn't, and I don't know why you keep insisting that it does. The mutations need only be non-deleterious and passed on. They don't have to become popular, they don;t have to confer any advantage at all. Though I would give a nod to economy in that if an organism keeps expressing a useless adaptation -at the expense- of the "standard equipment" owned by it's fellows that there would likely be a penalty to that.

Quote:Also it seems you need several parts from non-turning to turning to work in conjunction, but that seems problematic if it's only small changes, so hope you see where I'm stuck at.

I do see where you're stuck at, and it's language, as it has been from the start. So you need "several parts". So what? What is problematic?

It's not an "all of a sudden" sort of thing...now is it? B doesn't need to be an advantage, as I just explained to you.

Why do people talk about step A, step B, and step C as steps in advantage each, to emphasize, natural selection directing it, but then the steps in between A and B and C, need not be advantageous or directed?

Seems like getting best of both worlds. Convince us by "advantage mutation + natural selection" for one STAGE of mutation, but all that is leading up to that stage of series of mutations is not advantageous? Doesn't this seem like the theory is contradicting it's own principles?

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(April 6, 2013 at 1:18 pm)Rhythm Wrote: It's not an "all of a sudden" sort of thing...now is it?

But it seems it must be that way to me, (which is where I'm stuck at with irreducible complexity), at a certain point or at least guided by other than natural selection and random mutations.

Perhaps they talk about it that way as a method of popularizing science to an audience that might find it difficult to comprehend it without those crutches in terms or language?

A, B, and C -might all be advantageous, case by case scenario. But for a to lead to b to c they -needn't be advantageous...only non-deleterious. Are you having trouble understanding how one group of genetics in my plant example would find itself more well represented than the other?

(April 6, 2013 at 1:28 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Are you having trouble understanding how one group of genetics in my plant example would find itself more well represented than the other?

No I don't. But I don't see the relevance. As I stated, this can show why some bad mutations or benign mutations become popular, but not a series of mutations after one another that are moving something from point A to point B when point B is significantly different from point A.