No they aren't. What makes you say so?
I am not a scientist, I am a layman. So my understanding is no doubt flawed and very incomplete.
A disability is not a mutation nor a genetic defect. It is simply an unfortunate expression of already existing genes.
I thought not all genetic disabilities and diseases are caused by the parents passing on the gene. That some are random. So I assumed the product of random mutation or genetic damage. We also we have detonated nuclear bombs on civilian targets and have had nuclear power station accidents in populated areas, resulting in increased radiation. I am not a scientist so from a layman prospective that is some times said to have caused a increase in genetic damage and genetic mutation. We had still births, birth defects, genetic disabilities and genetic diseases and cancers. Outside science fiction and comic book fantasy, I do not think we got fertile mutants with beneficial new traits and new abilities that could create new species with radically new traits and abilities.
an unfortunate combination of the genes
It is a gene which already pre-exists
But is that not the same with the various breeds of dogs, expressions of combinations of already existing genes. Not new information, new traits, new abilities.
Why do you keep banging on about 'positive' or 'beneficial' mutations?
Because I am under the impression that evolution can not just rely on natural selection. That it needs added complexity, new traits and abilities being added from which it can select. That simple organisms evolve into complex organisms, with the complex organisms having traits and abilities not present in the progenitor simpler organism. That there has to be a means of adding that complexity, those beneficial traits and abilities, for those things to be available to be selected by natural selection.
I and others keep trying to tell you that there is no such thing. There are only mutations. A gene fails to replicate properly, creating a new gene, a mutation, which manifests (expresses) itself in the body pattern of its host. If that pattern allows its host to reproduce more successfully than those who carry the original configuration, then it will tend to increase in the population. If not, it won't. But it may only increase or decrease that tendency by a little bit. In that case, it will be absorbed into the genome of the species, and may eventually die out, or, if circumstances change, quickly become dominant.
It is examples of the new mutation, new strength, becoming dominate that have been seen as ongoing process, that I have been asking for. The evidence evolution the creation of new strengths, is in action now as a occurring process, rather than just evidence of natural selection from existing traits.
So far the examples seem to all be genetic defects. That coincidentally are beneficial in some circumstances. Like having one sickle cell gene causing defective blood cells along with good blood cells. Or examples of just selecting from existing traits like various breeds of dog, some of whom seem inferior or in some way could be viewed as deformed versions of the original species, etc...
The example by adbrand of Natural Selection Favors a Newly Derived timeless Allele in Drosophila melanogaster
was more convincing as a new strength arising and then undergoing natural selection. But it too could be seen as a genetic defect of a existing trait, that is coincidentally advantageous in some circumstance. As the creature is perceiving less light than their actually is giving it an advantage in higher altitudes as it goes into hibernation earlier.
In peppered moths, the black gene was always there, and black individuals were produced fairly frequently.
That is my point it is poof of natural selection. But I am under the impression that natural selection is only part of what is needed for evolution. If evolution is used to explain the evolution from simple organisms to more complex organisms and of widely divergent species with radical different traits and abilities like wings, feet and hands, gills and fins, etc... The creation of the added complexity, either via pre-existing in the genetic code present some how at the start like in the science fiction film or by being added to the genetic code by some process like genetic mutation, being needed to complete the explanation of evolution, natural selection alone just of already existing traits not being a full explanation.
Apparently in fossils there is evidence of increase in complexity of organisms and the addition of new traits and abilities, including radical new traits and abilities, What I have been asking is what evidence is there that it is occurring now as a ongoing process.
We know natural selection of existing traits is a currently occuring ongoing process, what about creation of new beneficial traits new strengths and new abilities from which natural selection can select.