Evolution: a different view with loss of traits; not Behe (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 20, 2020, 15:31 (1647 days ago) @ David Turell

A Darwin author suggests Behe was correct:

https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/a-striking-admission-that-michael-behe-was-right/

Abstract:

"Evolutionary novelty is difficult to define. It typically involves shifts in organismal or biochemical phenotypes that can be seen as qualitative as well as quantitative changes. In laboratory-based experimental evolution of novel phenotypes and the human domestication of crops, the majority of the mutations that lead to adaptation are loss-of-function mutations that impair or eliminate the function of genes rather than gain-of-function mutations that increase or qualitatively alter the function of proteins. Here, I speculate that easier access to loss-of-function mutations has led them to play a major role in the adaptive radiations that occur when populations have access to many unoccupied ecological niches. I discuss five possible objections to this claim: that genes can only survive if they confer benefits to the organisms that bear them, antagonistic pleiotropy, the importance of pre-existing genetic variation in populations, the danger that adaptation by breaking genes will, over long times, cause organisms to run out of genes, and the recessive nature of most loss-of-function mutations. "

https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0960-9822%2820%2930479-6

Comment: The PDF on this site makes it hard to read as it is very small. But here is a Darwinist suggesting Behe may be correct, that advances in evolution are due to destruction of DNA genes.