Cheerful Charlie
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For more great evolutionary fun and games, check out Horizontal Gene Transfer.
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Evolution Demonstrated In A Laboratory
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Elixir
Made in America
Nope. A population of imperfect self replicators is a PREREQUISITE for evolution, just as mass is a prerequisite for gravity. Why isn’t the origin of matter “included” in gravitational theory?
Why doesn’t your illogic and ignorance of evolutionary theory bother you?
Your childish insistence about what evolution “should include” is very much like arguing with the observable fact that gravity’s intensity bears an inverse relationship to distance, saying it doesn’t “include” the answer to the overarching question of where all that mass came from.
Elixir
Made in America
For proof of historical evolution and common ancestry see endogenous retrovirus.For more great evolutionary fun and games, check out Horizontal Gene Transfer.
Horizontal gene transfer - Wikipedia
Tharmas
Veteran Member
One of the creationist canards, perhaps more sophisticated than some, is the assertion that the “information” carried in a strand of DNA can never be augmented, only reduced. This is the equivalent of the claim that mutations can only be destructive and never constructive, except it sounds more sciency because it deals with maths such as Information Theory and such. This objection has been refuted many times, but always the creationist comes back with the claim that we haven’t actually observed a mutation adding anything positive to a strand of DNA in real time, just inferred it.
If I understand the article correctly, DNA actually mutating to augment its functionality has now been observed.
If I understand the article correctly, DNA actually mutating to augment its functionality has now been observed.
Elixir
Made in America
The mere willingness of creos to blindly indulge in mealy-mouthed judgments about what “evolution should include” is revelatory not only of their ignorance of evolutionary theory, but also of the willful nature of that ignorance. It’s easy to get upset about that, thereby confirming to the creo that your “faith” in evolution is totally emotional. Whereas, “anyone can see” that a divine Creator has to be responsible for their (if not your) existence.
That’s the main device that gave me such a bad taste in my mouth from its dishonesty that I stopped trying to engage creos. I presume that’s what they want.
That’s the main device that gave me such a bad taste in my mouth from its dishonesty that I stopped trying to engage creos. I presume that’s what they want.
Cheerful Charlie
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Over at Paryngula, P.Z. Meyers does a nice detailed takedown of Islamic clowns who think Mohammed understood developmental biology proving the Quran is true. No, not even close.
Bomb#20
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Fascinating stuff -- thanks for the links! But it doesn't really affect my point. As one of your links says, "Genes responsible for antibiotic resistance in one species of bacteria can be transferred to another species of bacteria through various mechanisms of HGT ... Horizontal gene transfer is recognized as a pervasive evolutionary process that distributes genes between divergent prokaryotic lineages and can also involve eukaryotes." The bacteria are going to keep right on conjugating no matter how much they evolve in our labs, so we won't be able to use inability to conjugate to prove new species have formed. Better to stick with animal examples when we find ourselves arguing with creationists."They reproduce asexually"? Not quite. Google for bacterial conjugation.
Bacterial conjugation - Wikipedia
Bomb#20
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You appear to be assuming that arguing that no creator was necessary is the point of evolutionary theory. I guess maybe it seems that way to people who care a lot about gods but don't much care about plants and animals. But gods or their absence were never the point. The point was for people who cared a lot about plants and animals to understand the patterns they were seeing. The whole theory of evolution happened in the first place because 18th- and 19th-century anatomists starting with Linnaeus compared different kinds of organisms and figured out that the resemblances formed a huge tree structure: a nested hierarchy of natural categories. That was an interesting observation -- the pattern didn't have to be that way -- so they wanted to figure out why. And the simplest explanation was that the shared features of two similar animals were inherited from the same ancestor. All the people who put that together believed in God. Even when Darwin came along later and proposed natural selection as a mechanism for how evolution happened, cutting God out of the picture was never the purpose. People forget the theory of natural selection was actually coinvented by Darwin and Wallace -- Darwin is more famous only because he wrote a popular book while Wallace wrote scientific papers -- and Wallace believed in God.
As far as "no creator was necessary" goes, the reasons for that conclusion are completely different in evolution from in origin of life theories. With evolution it's a matter of observation -- we can look at how living things work today and look at three billion years' worth of fossils, and understand how species transmutation happens and recognize that it's bound to happen whether there's a creator supervising the process or not. With origin of life it's a completely different situation -- there's no observational evidence, and until we can make it happen in the lab all ideas about how it might have happened in the wild are mere speculative guesses. We conclude "no creator was necessary" on logical grounds, not scientific grounds.
Physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy and so forth are all the study of simple things. The study of complicated things is biology. And the greatest unanswered question in biology is "Everything complicated we see came from something else that was already complicated, so why is there anything complicated at all? Why isn't everything simple?". As a matter of logic, "There are complicated things because a complicated thing made them." is not a substantive answer. It's a circular explanation. That is why we conclude "no creator was necessary".
Anyway, that's why "whole process package in one" isn't a practical idea yet. Science hasn't progressed enough for that. You might as well tell Galileo what we need from him is the Unified Field Theory.
Elixir
Made in America
Most definitions of evolution (in biology) that I have seen include something to the effect of "a change of allele frequencies within a population", and of course differential reproductive success is the filter that causes divergence, so "beneficial" mutations are inevitably accumulated until the fitness landscape changes and those mutations become neutral or negative. But stasis is not an option.
FWIW, I have seen studies for years that claim to document lamarckian-type effects, but have yet to see that there's significant consensus about that. I do suspect there's something going on there though (<$0.02).
Shadowy Man
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It's like how angels may be pushing the planets around, but they still do it following Kepler's Laws. And Kepler's Laws can be derived from Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. Those angels are pretty disciplined.
Both Kepler and Newton were religious.
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Thank you for that link. Most interesting.For more great evolutionary fun and games, check out Horizontal Gene Transfer.
Horizontal gene transfer - Wikipedia
Cheerful Charlie
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What is going on here is epigenetics. Epigenetics is the phenomena of genes being triggered by enviroment and enviromental changes. It is a complex subject that has given rise to a lot of bad science by people who should know better. And abuse by creationists and others. The issue, like everything in biology and evolutionary development can get quite technical. These issues have been discussed by P.Z. Meyers and Laurence Moran (Sandwalk blog).
Bewate the woo woo bird my son, and shun the frumious blatherskite!
What the heck is epigenetics?
sandwalk.blogspot.com
Elixir
Made in America
Yeah, it’s the fringes of epigenetics that are in question. Obviously environmentally induced mutations that directly effect gamete cells are possibly heritable, but apparently that’s not the only mechanism that can result in heritability - maybe. I’m not a believer but I wouldn’t rule out other pathways.
Reactivation/re-use of ERVs is a fascinating prospect, though that again falls into the ”random mutation” category. But environmental conditions could definitely lend to it.
Reactivation/re-use of ERVs is a fascinating prospect, though that again falls into the ”random mutation” category. But environmental conditions could definitely lend to it.
Learner
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Apologies if it appeared that way, but that wasn't on my mind.
In the OP, the first line with 'creationist' in it (quoted below), does hint the invitation to include some aspects of God or creation into the conversation:
That's very well put.. and quite understandably sensible... concluding on the logical grounds not science grounds.
I wanted to respond to Steve's post about the idea of a eternal universe. In short (squinting my eyes )...the complicated things as you mentioned, having ALL the time to develope, originating from a very rare momentary abiogenesis. I would think (simple terms) that with an eternal universe, logically this would be a regular occurrence.
Yes of course, I know the 'whole package' isn't currently feasible. I was alluding to the idea that it would be ideal for the 'no creator' argument.
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Learner
Abiogenesis is not necessarily rare. We know the composition of our star by spectral analysis, and by spectral analysis we can see distant similar stars. We can see solar system formation and can see disks of material around distant stars in an early stage of planetary formation. We can deduce planets around distant stars. We can assume planets around similar stars have the same composition as our planets.
We see life forms in miles deep mines that live on chemicals. Chemical creatures at volcanic sea vents. Life and evolution may be common, but our ecosystem may not be.
I do not think TOE is likely to be demonstrated by experiment. By that I mean from a first self replicating organism to complex diverse life through mutation and natural selection.
I think the article in the OP is one of those periodic scientific reorts that appear in the news athat are hyped. It is good science, but not proof of anything.
Our observational limit is the ability to detect electromagnet radiation. We do not know what is out past that limit.
I think evolution and abiogenesis are probably constants assuming our science applies elsewhere and conducive initial conditions.
There is a good chance there may be evidence of life past or present on Mars and other places in the solar system.
And as a pope put it, evolution may just be part of gods plan.
Abiogenesis is not necessarily rare. We know the composition of our star by spectral analysis, and by spectral analysis we can see distant similar stars. We can see solar system formation and can see disks of material around distant stars in an early stage of planetary formation. We can deduce planets around distant stars. We can assume planets around similar stars have the same composition as our planets.
We see life forms in miles deep mines that live on chemicals. Chemical creatures at volcanic sea vents. Life and evolution may be common, but our ecosystem may not be.
I do not think TOE is likely to be demonstrated by experiment. By that I mean from a first self replicating organism to complex diverse life through mutation and natural selection.
I think the article in the OP is one of those periodic scientific reorts that appear in the news athat are hyped. It is good science, but not proof of anything.
Our observational limit is the ability to detect electromagnet radiation. We do not know what is out past that limit.
I think evolution and abiogenesis are probably constants assuming our science applies elsewhere and conducive initial conditions.
There is a good chance there may be evidence of life past or present on Mars and other places in the solar system.
And as a pope put it, evolution may just be part of gods plan.
Elixir
Made in America
Is there any reason to think it’s not? Even if the universe is only 13 billion years old?
Take an iPhone, fully charged. Type a decimal point (period) then type zeroes until the phone runs out of charge, and put a “1” in the last place.
That is the approximate percentage of the known universe from which we have observationally eliminated the possibility of current life. And our temporal window is a vanishingly small slice of the time the universe has been around. For all we know, life could be quite ubiquitous.
bilby
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^This.
There were huge areas of the Earth (deserts, polar ice caps, deep boreholes, hot springs, the abyssal plains of the deep oceans, etc.) that were once thought to be lifeless and sterile; As we have developed the technology to look more closely at these places, we have found life pretty much everywhere that there is liquid water.
We have evidence for the existence of liquid water elsewhere in our solar system, such as on Enceladus and Europa; And hints that it might also exist, or have recently existed, in places like Mars; But we haven't yet been able to study these locations in sufficient detail to determine whether or not they host life.
Water is going to be ubiquitous in the universe; Basically the vast majority of the universe is Hydrogen, so all the other elements are typically found compounded with as much hydrogen as they can hold: Wherever there's Nitrogen, we see Ammonia; Wherever there's Carbon we see Hydrocarbons (mostly Methane); and Wherever there's Oxygen we see Water.
It would be quite surprising, given our observations to date that show life to be an invariable consequence of the presence of water, and our expectation that water is highly common throughout the universe, if life doesn't exist throughout the universe.
It would also be quite surprising, given how far away even the closest planets and moons with possible liquid water are, if we had the ability to detect it with our current technology.
Jarhyn
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In D&D the wizard class has two aspects to which spells they may cast at any given point in time: they have both "spells known" and "spells prepared".
To bring the homology to light here, I think genetics both have "behaviors known" and "behaviors prepared".
I expect that epigenetic events trigger the preparation, the demethylation, of the gene that evolved to solve the problem.
I suspect further that these are heritable preparations: if a parent has an epigenetic activation that caused them to grow taller, perhaps exposure to stress in a part of the body associated with reaching, there can be genetic linkages to activate a genotype for growing taller that was previously methylated and dormant.
Then their children might reflect those same epigenetic changes.
This is a much more reliable way to operate mutation groups, insofar as it makes mutations that are harmful in various environments completely neutral, and allows Lamarckian acquisition and transfer... But it can't operate on a trait that doesn't exist somewhere in the genome already.
bilby
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There's no better way to clarify a complex technical subject, for the benefit of an audience who are neither geeks nor nerds, than <checks notes> using a D&D analogy.
Elixir
Made in America
That’s basically the speculation about ERVs … the pieces are already there, just waiting for some external event to cause them to be put to use. There is so much genetic
material in ERVs, it’s kinda hard to rule it all out. Now that it’s being looked at though, there will likely be some conclusions to be reached soon.