[gallo]

Quote by: loser The immune system does not work through random mutation. We build immunity from certain diseases because the immune system is triggered when these certain diseases invade the body. Immunity is very disease specific. We don't develop an immunity to smallpox when exposed to measles. There is a causality there that is inherit in all dynamics of life.

You are absolutely correct. The immune system does not work by a process of mutation. You do make one point on which I would like to expand. You said that we do not develop an immunity to smallpox when exposed to measles. However, we do develop immunity to smallpox after having cowpox. The two are so closely related that a case of either confers immunity to the other. It's just that smallpox is so much more virulent that it is fatal in a high number of cases, while cowpox almost never is.

It is the same with adaptation.

No, it's not.

In fact, causality is inherent in all life and is the force behind any and every mutation.

To say that mutations are random is not to say that they are uncaused. Of course they have causes - random errors in DNA replication, exposure to various radiations, exposure to certain chemicals. But the mutations, though caused, are not a directed response to the environment. For example, there is no logical way for decreased levels of sunlight to cause, as a response, the specific mutation that resulted in white skin. You see, such a mutation must necessarily take place in the gonads of some individual, which aren't exposed to sunlight anyway.

There is nothing random about it.

Actually, mutation is a random process. While they may be caused by environmental factors (as well as errors in DNA replication), they are not responses to the environment.

If a child is forced to drink cow's milk even though it's body cannot process that mild adequately, mutations occur in an attempt of the body to process that liquid.

Sorry. That's nonsense. If a lactose intolerant person drinks milk, they will not undergo mutations that will allow them to process lactose. In the past, before the development of lactose free substitutes such children usually died. A mutation such as you claim would have to take place in all of the millions upon millions of cells in the digestive system of the child. The mutation that conferred adult lactose tolerance happened in the gonads of some individual in the distant past. That individual never was lactose tolerant but his/her children were. That was an advantage for those who raised cattle and goats.

Drink poison long enough (in less than fatal quantities) and the body would eventually (if possible) develop immunity for that poison.

But, according to your premise, why wouldn't it be possible? In fact, such immunity to toxins are not the result of mutations. One example is that a heavy smoker can tolerate (even crave) nicotine (a toxic poison) at levels that would kill or nearly kill a non smoker.

Adaptation occurs but not randomly.

So now you are trying to use the same word with two different meanings. Although there is no clear distinction in the use of two similar words, lets just follow your lead here. What you are describing as an adaptation is not the result of a mutation. A mutation affects a single gene on a single chromosome in a single cell in a single organ. Thus, it can't actually cause a tolerance to lactose or a toxin. Lactose intolerance is not something that one gets over by drinking lots of milk since the cells of the digestive tract (all multi-millions of them) are incapable of producing the the enzyme necessary (lactase) to digest milk. Even if a mutation were to happen in an individual in the right place, a single cell cannot possibly produce enough lactase to make a difference. So let's call changes that individuals undergo in direct response to an environment "adaptations." However, let's call changes to populations of living organisms that are the result of a mutation in the gonad of an individual that was passed along to offspring in a gamete and offered a subsequent reproductive advantage "adaptions."

Sadly, biologists and geneticists don't actually make that distinction. Thus, those who have little understanding of the topic fail to make the distinction according to context. An individual adapts to changes in the environment biochemically. Such adaptations are not hereditary. Populations of organisms adapt genetically by random mutations and natural selection.

In the case of the toxins that you confuse with genetic intolerance, as I understand it, such tolerance is, in fact, a reaction of the immune system, just as smallpox immunity is.

I wonder, though. Are certain brains randomly crosswired so that the synapses misfire incessantly? Nah, there's a REASON why there is so much aberrant thinking in mankind.

And how is that even remotely related to this topic and your obvious misunderstanding?

This has made me think of a question. I'm going to start another post and try to link it to this one (if I can figure it out).

I'm sure you will, although I have little confidence that the connection will be logical.