by LtCmd.Lore 16 Replies latest watchtower bible
If I have the twisted JW reasoning right, are they saying that Evolution is impossible because we would all be dwarfs or mutants or something by now if it existed? WTF??? We are all different, and we all have different and varying degrees of variation.
If you think about it, these variations in fact argue for evolution rather than against it. So does the fact that no single one of them has yet dominated all the human race.
James
Actually, the allele for polydactylism is dominant. However, a dominant or recessive trait has nothing to do with its expression within a population. The matchup of two dominant polydactyl alleles likely ends in miscarriage, preventing its dispersion.
This information is so basic it is taught in high schools, yet somehow manages to not register with the editors of the Awake magazine?
PP....The article mentioned 70 years of work with mutations which "failed" to produce new species. Interestingly, this is all based on an "interview" with Max-Planck scientist Wolf-Ekkehard Lonnig, who also just happens to be a JW:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/51229/1.ashx
That fact is not mentioned in the article itself but is divulged on p. 21.
aah.., thanks
A question close to my heart (me bein' only 5' 2").
Height is a multi-allele trait, but like many phenotypic traits it follows a bell curve distribution. So what Leolaia was saying about the range of heights found within our species is true. With the lucky Nordic gods at the higher end, and the pygmies, and yours truly , finding ourselves on the shorter end.
Pygmies and many of us shorter statured people have skeletal structures that aren't all that disproportionate in comparison to the average sized adult. Phenotypes we recognize as dwarfs though have disproportionate skeletal structures and thats where some unusual alleles are coming into play.
There are different types of dwarfism, so I don't know which one PeacefulPete had in mind when he gave some of the probabilities of dwarf offspring. If we take achondroplasia (a very prevalent form), the dwarfs would be heterozygous for the trait - one allele is "normal" and the other one (in this case dominant) confers dwarfism. Being homozygous - two copies of the dominant allele would be lethal. Crossing the two dwarfs: we'd expect 50% of the zygotes to be heterozygous (dwarfs), about 25% would not have any copy of the dominant allele (normal height) and 25% zygotes homozygous. So if we only consider the offspring that continue to live, the proportions would better resemble 2/3 dwarfs and 1/3 normal height.
I used the figures here:Inheritance of Autosomal Dominant Genetic Diseases ... but you're right 25% would have a fatal case.
"This information is so basic it is taught in high schools, yet somehow manages to not register with the editors of the Awake magazine?"
May I remind you that the editors of the Awake! magazine dropped out of high school in 1974 because the end was coming in 1975. So my friend, they never made it to that class.
