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Phenotypic/Genotypic Expression & Other Evolution Bashing

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Posted by S.H. Le on October 15, 2000 10:01:18 UTC

According to the Genesis account, God created "kinds" of life. Each kind, had/has a built in genetic potential to exhibit a finite amount of phenotypic variation. -Bzrd

ok, is your distintion for "kinds" of life different from the scientific classification for species? if so, how does it differ, what makes it superior to the traditional scientific nomenclature, and what are the empirical findings for the basis in making such a distinction?

I ask this because i am familiar with this argument. I read it in an article where Creationists lost in their court case in trying to get Creationism taught in schools. I for one think it SHOULD be taught in schools. I`ve never learned so much about evolution until coming to this forum and debating it with you folks. However, I`ve never seen this "kinds" distinction made very clearly. Where do you draw the line between species? Dogs and Wolves belong to different species... are they of the same kind? Thus, "kinds" of animals remains ambiguous and unscientific.

As a species, canine domesticus can, and does, exhibit a great deal of phenotypic variation, depending upon which traits were selected from the gene pool. This is well understood by both creationists and evolutionists -Bzrd

Problem 1: phenotypic expression is not limited to the genotype (underlying genes responsible for a given trait) in question. In many instances the environment plays a role in phenotypic expression. These examples are present in cases of phenotypic plasticity (different phenotypes arising from identical genotypes), conditional mutants (mutations that only appear under certain environmental conditions), etc. So an observed phenotype is not completely dependent on genes alone.

Problem 2: You used the scientific nomenclature Canine domesticus. Again, is this the same thing as "kinds"? It`s strange that you would use this classification, because it is based on evolution. Canine indicates the genus name, and domesticus denoting the species name. Kingdom > Phylum > Class > Order > Family > Genus > Species: is the hierarchy of classification, and it is assumed that organisms in the procaryotic kingdom gave rise most life.
I guess i`m being a bit picky, but it would help for sheer clarity if you would communicate the difference between kinds and species, and didn`t use species nomenclature if you really intend to use something else for "kinds".

Traits are selected. They are not created. To say they are created via natural selection acting on random mutations, is to reach beyond empirical science into the realm of science fiction.There are precious few, if any, examples of a random mutations giving rise to a useful phenotypic trait in any species. For ex., they have been exposing fruit-flies to radiation [an extreme from of artificial selection pressure] for the better part of a hundred yrs. Yet, the best they can manage to produce are grotesquely mutated fruit-flies. -Bzrd

Funny you should bring up the fruit fly example, because i happen to be taking that lab in my genetics class - fascinating stuff. Anyways, your statement regarding "grotesquely mutated flies as the best they could do" clearly indicates that you didn`t understand the purpose of these experiments. The point of working with these flies is to determine interactions between genes, alleles, linkage and gene mapping. It turns out that mutations (kinda like in Mendel`s experiments with pea plants), help show us mechanisms involved in genetics/inheritance. So, these "grotesque flies" aren`t an attempt at creating a new higher evolved super species of flies, they`re an attempt at identifying and mapping gene distances on chromosomes. These flies work well because they have a 9 day life cycle, are easily maintainable (feeding), etc.
So nobody is trying to prove evolution in a lab setting... that would be incredibly difficult seeing as evolution is presumed to occur over a span of many thousands of years. Evolution is supported in many other indirect methods - like fossil evidence and population dynamics.

As i`ve said before, just because we can`t directly observe evolution happening right before our eyes doesn`t mean it doesn`t exist - we extrapolate it from inference. Now who`s subscribing the "if you can`t see it or poke it with a stick it doesn`t exist" mentality?

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