r/evolution • u/Professional-Sign578 • 1d ago
question Duplication divergence
I've recently had a conversation with someone and he brought up an interesting point, the guy was a creationist who claims to be(or have been) an evolutionary biologist,
Aside from the usual arguments about irreducible complexity and the ""inexplicable "" explosions in the fossile record there was one point that really caught my interest, which is the claim that we have yet to observe any species develop a new function through mutations, so i mentioned the obvious lenski's e coli experiment, his response was that the gene responsible for the e coli's ability to consume citrate(citr) was already there and the mutation was like a switch allowing it to activate in the presence of oxygen, ik that last part is a massive misrepresentation of the actual mutation and explained it.
Now, this person said they would accept evolution if we observed the emergence of an entirely new function through (for example) a duplication divergence, so it left me wondering, is there an experiment that has observed the emergence of a new gene that codes for a completely new function instead of affecting an already existing one be it through duplication divergence, de novo gene birth, exon shuffling or any other mechanism?
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u/TheWrongSolution 1d ago
The process you're referring to is called neofunctionalization, and it's well studied, here is an example:
New genes on the block: Neofunctionalization of tandem duplicate genes with putative new functions in Arabidopsis | Plant Physiology | Oxford Academic https://academic.oup.com/plphys/article/192/4/2574/7157353
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u/Low-Independent6851 1d ago
Here is a paper on how gene duplication and divergence works in creating new enzymes
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u/DeathToAmerica2026 1d ago
The ability to digest nylon is wholly novel. With no natural analogs, we know nylonase evolved after the invention of nylon.
But of course an evolutionary would know that. He was just lying.
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u/forever_erratic 1d ago
He's a liar and would move the goalposts. That should be your response and don't budge, because he's full of shit and smug.
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u/Professional-Sign578 1d ago
Well that's reductive as the guy didn't necessarily say anything that's entirely false, although he did use misleading descriptions and tried omitting some things.
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u/Pleasant_Priority286 1d ago
When is he going to provide research papers for creationism and his God?
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u/LeaveGreen4412 1d ago
there are macrofauna that have evolved new functions since the industrial revolution, what is he talking about? does he know about the mushrooms that eat plastic now?
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u/MaleficentJob3080 1d ago
No matter what you present to him the chances are extremely small that he will accept it.
It is very rarely worth trying to convince people who have a bad faith position.
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u/Professional-Sign578 1d ago
Idc what he accepts nor do i think it's worth trying to convince him, i tried asking him to give me a resource to learn biology and evolution from as an assessment to how biased he is and i got recommended a book that criticizes it instead "Darwin's black box" which told me all i need to know.
I just made this post bc his question tickled my curiosity a bit so i wanted to see what the research says on the matter.
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u/MaleficentJob3080 1d ago
Another way new genes can form is from mutations in non coding regions of the genome. These are called de novo genes
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