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Stupid Christian Article on Evolution

randman said:
The genes were already there assuming common descent in the first place with the last common ancestor. They didn't arrive via mutation and natural selection. They didn't arrive via adaptionism (Neodarwinism). That means the whole NeoDarwinian story was wrong.
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I think in your enthusiasm you're misinterpreting the data. The last common ancestor was a more complex organism than previously suspected. Modern vertebrates and invertebrates have many genes from this common ancestor. Invertebrates have lost far more of these original genes than vertebrates (for reasons mentioned previously). Vertebrates are still using many of the genes of this common ancestor. Genes do not act alone - very few genes exclusively determine a phenotypic trait, the phenotypic expression of patterning genes can be modified, extended, or enhanced through modifications to their expression and/or the expression of the genes they control.

So you find strongly preserved gene clusters, like the Hox, that are used as the basis for the developmental orientation and differentiation of both vertebrates and invertebrates. I suggest you'll find the same is true of the coral genes associated with the nervous system.

There's no doubt that new genes arise through mutation and spread through populations because of their selective advantage - it's been demonstrated in the lab (and in farms and hospitals, where resistant bacteria have become a problem).

As a software developer, I find it very reminiscent of classic pre-agile business software development. Somebody would write some simple utility programs to automate simple business requirements. Someone would write more. Someone would decide to make an integrated suite from the utilities. Someone would write a prototype. It would be approved. Someone would use the prototype code as a basis for the business system, adding the hacked utility code. A number of people would enhance it. Every developer would be lazy, reusing and bodging code wherever possible, as long as it worked. The final system would look and feel completely different from the early utilities, but deep inside, there would still be some original functions and subroutines, and many hacked variations of the really useful stuff.

This research is like someone finding the source code for the original software and comparing it with it's derivatives in two different companies, and being surprised to find that the original code was more comprehensive than they'd thought, and that the big, slow-moving international company was using a lot more of the original code than the smaller, fast-moving company.
 
Mister Agenda said:
No doubt he's referring to the T. Rex fossil that had soft parts. Mary Schweitzer was the scientist who discovered some springy stuff in a fossil that preserved some details of vascular structure and some hemoglobin fragments. It's an interesting discovery that hasn't been fully analyzed (or, as far as I know) replicated yet.

It's the sort of thing that would have been sat on for years while it was thoroughly investigated before publication if Schweitzer hadn't (admittedly) been desperate for funding.

It will be interesting to see how it all turns out, but premature to draw conclusions from it.
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Here's a followup, from the same team: http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070409/full/news070409-11.html

And another: http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketsc..._vessels_recovered_from_brachylophosaurus.php

Don't know of any independent confirmation though.
 
randman said:
From the beginning, it predicts greater complexity. It's silly to deny it.
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Why is it silly to deny it? Darwin wasn't even aware of genes, how could he predict they'd get more complex? From the beginning, the theory of evolution predicts that speciation goes in the direction of the species being better adapted to its environmental niche. Nothing about genome size or complexity.

There has been some trend toward greater morphological complexity, given that's really the only direction to go in from microbes, but that definitely doesn't require an ever-increasing amount of genetic material, just that the genes that we have code for the bodies that we have.
 
randman said:
How? How does natural selection act on genetic mutation?
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By eliminating members of a species that have genes less-adapted for their environmental niche than other members of that species from the gene pool; or eliminating entire species from the gene pool. That is, it doesn't act on mutation at all, it acts on mutants.
 
randman said:
Mister Agenda:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/307/5711/910.abstract

You owe me an apology as it is you that was wrong. You also shouldn't be so quick to claim critics don't understand evolution. I see nothing in your post on evolution, for example, except one comment which was wrong.
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I'll decide to whom I owe an apology, thank you. The 'definitive' mammalian ear is a bit more specific than the basic plan, which evolved once. The monotremes and therians both already had ears greatly different from reptilian ears, it was the middle bone that they evolved independently.
 
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randman said:
It's been replicated. You haven't kept up, and that was a nasty smear you made of her suggesting it was only about funding. It's not the sort of thing to have sat for years although it was in the early 90s she uncovered the first one that looked like it had red blood cells.
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Those were her words. And citation, please?
 
randman said:
Not confused, and when are you going to apologize? You were wrong on the mammalian ear, right?
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Your understanding of the speed of an internet discussion board thread appears to be about as sound as your understanding of the theory of evolution.
 
Let's get some things straight if we are to continue. First, the juvenile suggestions I am the one not understanding evolution or the debate are ridiculous. So far on this thread, we've seen posters that didn't seem to even know what a genome is; have never heard the term adaptionism which is a very common term in the literature and a very basic concept; that made the absurd claim while calling me ignorant that placentals evolved from marsupials; that the mammalian ear did not independently evolve more than once; that had never even heard of Goldschmidt or Grasse, etc, etc,....You'd think after some of you keep getting your basic facts wrong and showing a total ignorance of many basics of the debate, that you just might realize that perhaps I am informed and know what I am talking about. Judging by the comments so far, I am quite certain I have debated this same stuff ad nauseum in fact with far more knowledgeable people, including some scientists that actually work in these fields.

So let's lay off the stupid stuff. You might learn something even if you choose to disagree.

Now, addressing the initial point I was making. Mutations happen slowly over time. Evos don't believe the first mammal just popped out of an egg laid by a reptile (Goldschmidt's hopeful monster theory). Mutations happen slower than that.

What that means is the original genomes had to start small according to NeoDarwinism.

Got that?

Why?

Mutations happen slowly over time. You don't just see whole new genomes wildly different than the immediate ancestor just pop up. Evolution does not happen that fast.

Can we agree on that? Something simple mutates and then later the offspring mutate and so on and on. That's NeoDarwinism. That's adaptionism. That's the theory of evolution. Small changes add up over time to big ones.

The problem is, of course, that recent discoveries suggest that the very simplest organisms did not have simple, less complex genomes and maybe far more complex and varied than any species today.

That's the opposite of mutations happening and adding up slowly.

Shouldn't be such a difficult concept to grasp.
 
Mister Agenda said:
Why is it silly to deny it? Darwin wasn't even aware of genes, how could he predict they'd get more complex? From the beginning, the theory of evolution predicts that speciation goes in the direction of the species being better adapted to its environmental niche. Nothing about genome size or complexity.

There has been some trend toward greater morphological complexity, given that's really the only direction to go in from microbes, but that definitely doesn't require an ever-increasing amount of genetic material, just that the genes that we have code for the bodies that we have.
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Never said it was ever-increasing but the original genome would necessarily be small as mutations happen slowly. You think all the mutations needed just happened right off the bat?

Moreover, adaptionism (evo theory) posits that natural selection plays a role in causing those mutations to remain. So you have specific traits involved with specific mutations. They do hand in hand.

Why is that so difficult for you to grasp?

So how would the simplest organisms with very few traits have the most complex or close to it, genomes?
 
Mister Agenda said:
I'll decide to whom I owe an apology, thank you. The 'definitive' mammalian ear is a bit more specific than the basic plan, which evolved once. The monotremes and therians both already had ears greatly different from reptilian ears, it was the middle bone that they evolved independently.
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So basically you were ignorant of the fact that "the mammalian ear" has been discussed in print over the past few years, on how it evolved via convergent evolution, and you were wrong. I was the one informed on the subject and you were talking about the reptilian ear or something prior to the mammalian ear.

It's like you guys don't even know basic terms. Anyone should know if they have been following this debate, what "the mammalian ear" refers to in regard to convergent evolution.

Same with the terms "genome" and "adaptionism."

Google this stuff next time instead of assuming and going off blasting someone more knowledgeable than you as ignorant.
 
Mister Agenda said:
By eliminating members of a species that have genes less-adapted for their environmental niche than other members of that species from the gene pool; or eliminating entire species from the gene pool. That is, it doesn't act on mutation at all, it acts on mutants.
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So it works in conjunction with evolved traits. Those better adapted survive due to their traits be better ADAPTED to the current situation.

Was that so hard?
 
There's no doubt that new genes arise through mutation and spread through populations because of their selective advantage - it's been demonstrated in the lab (and in farms and hospitals, where resistant bacteria have become a problem).
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Mutations happen slowly over time, right? And they are spread through selective advantage due to new traits. If there are no new traits, then there is no change for there to be a selective advantage.

Well, considering how primitive the earliest organisms were, how did all the massive numbers of mutations get there to create complex genomes, perhaps the most complex genomes?
 
randman said:
...But that would be a physics thread, and yes, I do have some ideas on how reality including life is generated.
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Why not create a thread in 'Science Medicine & Technology'? We've had a couple of good reality discussions of late.
 
Random genetic variation means that two lineages can never converge to a point where they are genetically identical,
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Even individuals are not generally genetically identical. I assume you are talking about parts of the genome? That a random process isn't going to produce the same genetic sequences, right?

If you believe that, what happens to your theory if we do see the same genetic sequences emerge?
 
randman said:
Let's get some things straight if we are to continue. First, the juvenile suggestions I am the one not understanding evolution or the debate are ridiculous. So far on this thread, we've seen posters that didn't seem to even know what a genome is; have never heard the term adaptionism which is a very common term in the literature and a very basic concept; that made the absurd claim while calling me ignorant that placentals evolved from marsupials; that the mammalian ear did not independently evolve more than once; that had never even heard of Goldschmidt or Grasse, etc, etc,....You'd think after some of you keep getting your basic facts wrong and showing a total ignorance of many basics of the debate, that you just might realize that perhaps I am informed and know what I am talking about. Judging by the comments so far, I am quite certain I have debated this same stuff ad nauseum in fact with far more knowledgeable people, including some scientists that actually work in these fields.

So let's lay off the stupid stuff. You might learn something even if you choose to disagree.

Now, addressing the initial point I was making. Mutations happen slowly over time. Evos don't believe the first mammal just popped out of an egg laid by a reptile (Goldschmidt's hopeful monster theory). Mutations happen slower than that.

What that means is the original genomes had to start small according to NeoDarwinism.

Got that?

Why?

Mutations happen slowly over time. You don't just see whole new genomes wildly different than the immediate ancestor just pop up. Evolution does not happen that fast.

Can we agree on that? Something simple mutates and then later the offspring mutate and so on and on. That's NeoDarwinism. That's adaptionism. That's the theory of evolution. Small changes add up over time to big ones.

The problem is, of course, that recent discoveries suggest that the very simplest organisms did not have simple, less complex genomes and maybe far more complex and varied than any species today.

That's the opposite of mutations happening and adding up slowly.

Shouldn't be such a difficult concept to grasp.
Click to expand...

You do realize that the 'simplest' organisms that had such small genomes were single cellular life which probably went extinct over 2 billion or more years ago? If not earlier? The earliest life we have true fossils of has a evolutionary history of nearly 1 billion years. Lifeforms that small barely leave fossils as it is, and then geological processes get all that time to obliterate them.
Even if we DO find fossils, there is no DNA left in there. Its barely possible to extract DNA from perfectly frozen mammoths a mere 10000 years old.

Yet all lifeforms on earth utilize the exact same mechanism for making protein (albeit with species variation) and use ATP and glycolysis, indicating that the last common ancestor already had ribosomes, the glycolytic pathway and the mechanism to synthesize the proteins needed. Which is not that different from truly simple organisms alive today. There are in fact groups working on determining what would be the absolute minimal genome for such a common ancestor, and such organisms are already quite complex.

As to your other question at some point, how does natural selection work on mutations, that's very simple.
Mutations happen. Continuosly and in all organisms. Some mutations are lethal, causing the organism to die.
Most mutations are not lethal, and thus are transferred to the offspring of the organisms.
If one of those non-lethal mutations happens to give an organism a trait that allows it to slightly outcompete the rest of its species, this mutation will be transferred more. Other mutations again occassionaly will interject themselves, and if they cause another slight advantage once again this mutation will be transferred more.
And yes, these mutations can be anything from complete parts of the genome duplicating or dissapearing to single point mutations in a single gene.
 
Are you familiar with molecular studies in the literature that purport to assess the genetic complexity and features of the last common ancestor, etc,....even though we have no DNA, nor expect to find any?

You seem to think such work is fruitless, or perhaps just didn't know about it? Evolutionists don't think we have to find billion year old DNA to assess what their genome was like. They have theories they work with on mutational rates and study living creatures and do analysis that is generally accepted.

Mutations though happen fairly slowly. And they remain through natural selection due to new traits given creatures a competitive advantage.

So with so few traits compared to say, us, human beings, how did they manage to evolve into such genetic complexity that is likely greater than human beings? How did they evolve genes for complex nerve function if they had no complex nerve function? There was no trait there to be selected for. They hadn't evolved that much.
 
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