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From: gordon@uw-june (Gordon Davisson)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: So simple, even a creationist can understand!
Message-ID: <44@uw-june>
Date: Fri, 12-Jul-85 06:28:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-june.44
Posted: Fri Jul 12 06:28:20 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 16-Jul-85 20:56:13 EDT
References: <2156@ut-sally.UUCP> <347@scgvaxd.UUCP>
Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
Lines: 32
Keywords: Re: A new voice.

>>>[Stanley Friesen]
>>>So *most*, mutations are "harmful", this is where N[atural].S[election].
>>>comes in, it amplifies the few "beneficial" ones that do occur.

>>[Paul Torek]
>>Exactly.  One creationist expressed bafflement at the idea that mutation
>>could result in evolutionary chains that "go so far" as the "distance"
>>between radically different organisms.  But try this experiment:  flip
>>several (many) coins, and move to the right on a number line (start
>>at zero) only when you get all coins coming up heads.  This represents
>>movement toward an adapted complex species.  Move to the left every
>>time you get any result other than all heads.  Only there's one catch:
>>you don't get to move to the left.

>[Paul Dubuc]
>*How* do the beneficial mutations get amplified by Natural Selection?
>How does that "catch" in Paul's experiment relate to N.S.?  Why don't
>some trials cause us to move to the left, or even cause us to start
>again from the beginning?  Why must natural selection work the way Paul
>says it does?

Harmful mutations have no lasting bad influence on a population because
their carriars tend not to have many decendants.  Thus, after a while, the
mutation dissapears from the population.  Beneficial mutations, on the
other hand, cause their carriers to tend to have more decendants than
the non-carriers, so after a while, most of the population carries the
mutation, and the population has taken a step to the right (so to speak).

--
Human:    Gordon Davisson
ARPA:     gordon@uw-june.ARPA
UUCP:     {ihnp4,decvax,tektronix}!uw-beaver!uw-june!gordon