Sickle-cell a "beneficial mutation"??

Re: Beneficial mutations, trolls, and actual bio research...


Thanks for wandering by Jennifer Good info.

And welcome to A2K.

You don't seem to grasp the point. The point is, that in theory, there could be a population of apes, and every once in a while one of the apes gets a "beneficial mutation(TM)", and by and by, without anybody ever having noticed anything unusual, about 10,000,000 yeas later, you have a population of humans.

But in real life, the best example of a "beneficial mutation(TM)" anybody can produce, is sickle-cell anemia.

What a horrible joke on the human race that anybody could ever believe bullshit like that.

Who precisely do you contend claims that sickle cell anemia is a beneficial mutation?

You perverted the story considerably, as we expect from Gunga Din. For example, one is not faced with a choice between seeing people die of malaria or die of sickle cell anemia. Sickle cell anemia does not entail a sudden onset which swiftly kills those who have the condition. Malaria does not necessarily kill, either. Additionally, malaria, which originated in the Mediterranean, and was spread across southern Europe and Northern Africa by the Romans, did not spread across the Sahara because of a lack of the necessary conditions to support the plasmodia.

Malaria was contracted by Cordoba's tercios in the wars of King Carlos--who was idiotically elected Holy Roman Emperor by German Electors who succumbed to his bribery. In the fighting in Italy, the Spaniard contracted malaria, and carried it to the Indies, both East and West. It did not enter subsaharan Africa to stay until the late 19th century.

Prior to that time, those who were taken to the West Indies to work the sugar plantations died in droves. At first, these were European peasants. The combination of the climate and malaria killed them in their thousands, literally. The Arawak tribes of Amerindians fared no better--although aclimatized, the malaria carried them off faster than Europeans, most of whom had inherited a resistance to the devestation of the liver which kills most swiftly.

Sickle cell anemia is endemic in only certain regions of the globe, such as the Korean penninsula and west Africa. West African negroes who were transported to the West Indies as slaves tended to survive the brutal labor conditions of the sugar cane brakes because they were inured to the heat and humidity, and because of a propensity to sickle cell anemia. The quaternary stage of the life cycle of the plasmodium which causes malaria is the colonization of red blood cells. This effect was greatly reduced in those with sickle cell anemia, and the successful colonization of the liver by the plasmodium usually failed. Niether malaria nor the sickly cell anemia killed the West African Negro, although either or the combination of both would ennervate them, giving rise to a stereotype of laziness.

Basically, the dynamic of malaria and sickle cell anemia is one of the most striking examples of evolution in action for which the historical record provides an example. West African negroes became the slaves of choice by default--they survived when other alborers--whites, blacks and even imported Chinese "coolies" did not. The slave trade on the coast of what would become the United States originated in the West Indies, so that the concentrated genetic propensity for sickle cell anemia was transferred to America.

I know of no one so idiotic as to suggest that this is a "beneficial mutation." Anyone who makes such a suggestion obviously has their head up their ass. Anyone who attempts to use such a claim in a feeble and dull-witted attempt to discredit a theory of evolution is equally deluded and stupid.

You tell 'em, setanta.

I believe that gwanga has claimed that hes a statistician , so he understands such matrix expansions Jennifer. (welcome aboard, sounds like youve got some skills ).
Hes just a bullheaded contrarian, and hes quite bellicose and rude in his arguments cause mostly hes standing there unarmed.
"If you cant be right, be wrong at the top of your lungs"
-- Charles Brown

Nobody who HAS it, that's for damned certain...

Is there an ignore function on a2k? *edit* On second thought I should ask this somewhere else.

Translation: This is another typical Gunga Din whine, devoid of substance, absolutely unsubstantiated. Say, SWolf . . . er, i mean Gunga Din, why don't you go off to one of the Serbia threads and complain about the ethnic cleansing carried out against the innocent and long-suffering Serbs--at least when you used to do that, no one had any interest in the racist lies you peddle.

So this is where Gunga goes to when he's not making absurd Islamophobic slurs and ridiculous partisan political exaggerations. I've always wondered how he managed to get such a big post count.

Sickle-cell is not a good example of a beneficial mutation.

Although, I did read a recent article that argued that evolution is still happening in humanity, although the evolutionary trend is towards more intelligent people (either that or tests are dumbing down).

Of course, to predict evolution is a fruitless exercise. You cannot predict evolution.

And let's not forget the beneficial mutation CCR5-(delta)32, which offers some protection against HIV-1 infection.

DRD4, a dopamine receptor appears to have been selected for, though no one knows exactly why.

True, but it's the best they've got.

Actually, wikipedia offers a list of known mutations amongst humans:

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

Some of you experts might want to read through the list and see which of them you think you might derive some "benefit" from...

Louis Carroll's girlfriend, describing the world of the evolutionist, in which "some pills make you larger, and some pills make you small...", mutations are always beneficial, and all the children are above average....

No one ever said all mutations are beneficial, quite the contrary. Are you still flailing this horse? hes dead, just like your logic.

That's a list of genetic disorders. It says so right in the title. These mutations stand out because they are dramatically harmful. But every receptor that's got an extra couple of amino acids at the end, every different MHC locus is the result of mutation. If all mutations are so harmful, why is there so much variability in the genome of every critter that walks, oozes, swims, or flies across the earth?

Variation in alleles and microevolution cause the sort of variation you speak of and are not part of the debate on the THEORY of evolution, which involves macroevolution. Real mutations, in real life, cause debility and death, as the website notes.

"Real" mutations? What do you think causes variation in alleles, if not mutation?

gunga uses words and is never bothered by their meanings .If wed ask him for a definition of both micro and macro evolution, Im sure wed get a pre recorded message

No, it's not. I pointed out to you the mutation in which the CCR5 receptor is missing. That's beneficial in that it gives protection against HIV infection. That is an even better example of a beneficial mutation.

Funny thing, every one of these "beneficial mutations" involves some sort of loss of function or capacity; in this case, having some normal function missing prevents AIDS from catching on.

Problem is, you develop immunity to four or five diseases in such fashion, and your nose will fall off, your ears, your arms, legs, your ass......

Likewise in the claims of microorganisms developing immunity to antibiotics via some such "beneficial mutation" in which information is lost. That's why doctors sometimes treat diseases with several antibiotics. The microbe loses so much information in evolving to deal with them, that it dies.

That (dying) is supposed to be beneficial in the world of the evo-loser.

Like Gracie says, "One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small....."

SWolf is just as stuffed full of **** as the proverbial Christmas goose . . . but then, we all knew that already . . .