How do people who believe evolution is fact account for living beings evolving "up"?

There are no gene mutations that we are currently aware of that cause organisms (or their parts) to transform into more complex organisms.... Every genetic change we know of does NOT "add to". With this in mind, how can evolution be possible?
How do people who believe evolution is fact account for living beings evolving "up"?
"There are no gene mutations that we are currently aware of that cause organisms (or their parts) to transform into more complex organisms."





This statement reveals that you don't understand the process of evolution. Individual organisms (and their parts) do not evolve; rather populations of organisms that are reproductively isolated from similar populations evolve as they accumulate different genetic changes. Your contention that genetic change does not add to a gene pool is simply not correct. We have many documented examples of genetic mutation becoming fixed within populations and they certainly do lead to evolutionary change.





This fallacy is known as a straw man argument. You state something that isn't true, and then use this untruth to "prove" something else can't be true.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man





You set this argument up when you say "With this in mind, how can evolution be possible?" The answer is it probably can't, but because your premise is flawed, all conclusions drawn from the premise are also flawed. Thus, you are either being lied to by someone else, or you're just plain lying all on your own. In either case, you're passing on a lie which is easily refuted by scientific studies and you're painting yourself as either a dupe or a liar. Knowing this, it would take a fool to attach very much credence to whatever else you might have to say about anything.





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Some examples:


The CDY-related gene family: coordinated evolution in copy number, expression profile and protein sequence


Steve Dorus, Sandra L. Gilbert, Michele L. Forster, Robert J. Barndt and Bruce T. Lahn


http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/conten...





Evolution of novel genes


Manyuan Long


http://pondside.uchicago.edu/~longlab/pu...





RNAs from all categories generate retrosequences that may be exapted as novel genes or regulatory elements


J. Brosius


http://zmbe.uni-muenster.de/expath/artic...





Molecular Evolution of Genes Controlling Petal and Stamen Development: Duplication and Divergence Within the APETALA3 and PISTILLATA MADS-Box Gene Lineages


Elena M. Kramera, Robert L. Doritb, and Vivian F. Irisha


http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full...





Duplication and selection in the evolution of primate beta-defensin


genes


Colin AM Semple, Mark Rolfe and Julia R Dorin


http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf...





Origin and Neofunctionalization of a Drosophila Paternal Effect Gene Essential for Zygote Viability


Benjamin Loppin,David Lepetit,Steve Dorus, Pierre Couble and Timothy L. Karr


http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abst...





Positive Darwinian selection after gene duplication in primate ribonuclease genes


Jianzhi Zhang, Helene F. Rosenberg, and Masatoshi Nei


http://www.pnas.org/content/95/7/3708.ab...





Evolution by gene duplication: an update


Jianzhi Zhang


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob...





Subfunctionalization of duplicated genes as a transition state to neofunctionalization


Shruti Rastogi email and David A Liberles


http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/5...





Inventing an arsenal: adaptive evolution and neofunctionalization of


snake venom phospholipase A2 genes


Vincent J Lynch


http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf...
Reply:That's not entirely true. The way you're thinking of it, you would think the human genome has millions of genes and to transform into more complex organisms each gene needs to mutate. If you check out HOX genes, you'll see that even a slight change in the hox gene sequence can produce real, phenotypic, change. Once an organism has a mutated hox gene, al it takes is reproduction to pass these genes on. Once there's some funky phenotype out there, variations will eventually be selected for and then you have your new complex organism.





Viruses are also really interesting to read about in terms of how they may have impacted the evolution of a nucleus and all other sorts of genes.
Reply:Actually, all possible mutations do occur (given enough time) -- good, bad or indifferent (or, as you'd put it, up down or sideways). In general, they occur at random.





An organism that mutates "down" has less chance of reproducing and, therefore, of passing its mutated gene to descendants. Its lineage eventually disappears.





An organism that mutates "up" has more chance of reproducing (that is, in fact, the definition of "up" for mutations). Therefore, its lineage is likely to increase in proportion of population. The increase will continue until the mutation is no longer an advantage (the environment changes or the rest of the population has been overtaken by the "improved" lineage).





An organism that mutates "sideways" (a neutral mutation) will retain the same proportion and will see their lineage mixed with the general population. This mix continues until something in the environment changes, making some of the features more advantageous than others. Then (and only then) are the "neutral" mutations suddenly not neutral anymore.
Reply:Actually mutation CAN add to information. DNA can be copied twice or other such things that increase the amount of DNA.





Mutation is not just copied wrong. it is any screw up in the process...imagine a guy at copycop and all the things he can do to screw up your spreadsheet...he can mess up the data, only copy half, copy half 3 times, copy it all 4 times and run together, copy 5 pages into one page of data, etc.





Case in point....it IS biologically possible for a child to be born with male and female DNA which results in a baby that could go either way and cosmetic surgery would then be used to pick but the DNA is still there and if they had a child 1/2 their DNA would be a full adults amount plus the other parents 1/2 and these could mutate to increase the DNA of the offspring to have more traits because of a DNA mixup then being applied to next generation...would if beneficial traits came along would be "UP" evolution to use your terms or most likely it would be neutral for some generations
Reply:Yes, there are mutations that add to the sum of genetic information. Duplication mutations happen all the time, and are the basis of increasing complexity.





Let's say that you have the gene for hemoglobin. It's essential for life in most animals. If it were to mutate into myoglobin, it would be useful in muscles, and could increase endurance (and obviously boost fitness)... but at the expense of hemoglobin, leading to a non-viable animal. Let's say that a duplication occurs. Suddenly, there are two genes for hemoglobin. Selective pressure would ensure that at least one of them would remain functional, while the other would be free to mutate into myoglobin, boosting fitness.





This is just a simplified conceptual example. I don't know if this is exactly how myoglobin evolved (whether hemoglobin or myoglobin came first). It follows the pattern we see in genetics and biochemistry though - several systems built up on modifications of other systems. The "evolution can't increase complexity" argument is a tired one, and I've heard it repeated countless times, despite being definitively disproved long ago.
Reply:Thats simply not true.





The best example i can give you is the genome duplication events in many of the plants we eat. We can see this happening (the wiki article is very good) and the fact that it gives a huge amount of increased complexity within a genome.





This can also happen with single genes or (argubly more importantly) untranscribed DNA portions that give the genome the structure (centromemers and telomeres and introns) we see. The question is a very good one, and i encourage extra reading around the subject....





Cheers
Reply:i am not sure what your question is .however , if you are trying to say evolution is not taking place ,you are wrong .


a simple example .


insects resistant to some insecticides . they are more complex compared to their previous generations which died due to pesticides . and they are able to pass on their resistance due to their genes .
Reply:We cannot see the gene mutations that are causing more complex organisms to form because it is happening so slowly.
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