Predicting Evolution: A Beginner's Model 84
Silance writes "According to ScienceDaily , Scientists have developed a method of accelerating evolution in the lab that accurately mimics natural evolution. Drug-resistant E.coli strains from the 1940's that were subjected to the evolutionary speed-up process indeed followed the same evolutionary path as their natural bretheren. It is believed that the process could be used to predict the future monkey-wrenches that evolution might lob our way. Neat-o!"
monkey wrenches like that pesky natural selection. (Score:2)
Then we can have viruses and plagues that are more evolved than us.
I also wonder what evolution we would have "naturally" gone through.
Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:2, Interesting)
There has been a view that the Bible talks about God's days (periods of creation), each of which could take millions of years. AFAIK this view is that of God-assisted evolution. He gives the right impulses and the monkeys move off the trees.
This is not ridiculous, there are still some missing links in the known evolution and it does indeed seem that in a few moments in the history evolution sped up like hell.
In fact, this may be a pure chance as well as an act of God, and this cannot be resolved until God manifests Himself, like a face in the sky speaking everyone's language at once telling us to finally shut up and be good to each other.
(Personally, I believe this is possible, as much as the pure-chance scenario. No difference to me, really.)
Not that this discussion deserves consideration... (Score:2, Insightful)
The One who builds a grand machine starts it running and enjoys the show?
Or the One who continually needs to tune it up?
Did God create the universe? Is solely a question of of religion. How does the universe work? Is the domain of science, but most importantly, not answered by the first question. A fact lost on most creationists.
Re:Not that this discussion deserves consideration (Score:2)
True, the answer to the second question does not necessarily follow from that to the first, but this is not the sole argument of the creationists. IANAC (well, actually I am, but not in the way they are), but I'm pretty sure they would quote a scripture or two to support their views of how the universe works beyond "b'reishit bara elohim et ha'shamiim v'et ha'aretz" (--'cause if you're not going to cite His words the way He said them, your citation can't be taken for Gospel). Let us take the example of Adam as representative: that God created the universe does not mean that He took from the earth and molded Adam, breathing into him; we need another line of scripture to show that. Creationists would argue that we have that line, and thus is the root of their belief.
Kooky literalists vs Intelligent Adgenda vs Facts (Score:2)
Personally, I have a little bit more of a problem with the "intelligent design" brand of kook. It's pretty clear their only motivation is to wedge their God into other people lives under the guise of empirical truth. Funny how similar people legislated God into the pledge of allegiance in a naive and embarisingly futile attempt to push back the clock to a Ward Cleaver ideal that never really existed. Maybe such pledges for children too young to understand them are the fine line between nationalism and fascism. Maybe it's even a good thing that people who invested too much faith in a magic guy in the sky, rather than personal responsability, added those little words that didn't belong and got it kicked out of schools. Although, perhaps not all. But I think there is some value giving kids a sense of national identity. These are the people affecting change. And never for the better. The people trying to find Noah's Ark, they might make the news, but never a difference, and as such, they're pretty harmless.
I would bet that every state has its properly apportioned share of state representatives that are trying to get a mandatory intelligent design curriculum state wide. Enough time is wasted in our schools as it is. We don't need to be inventing worthless garbage that will be competing with the little bit of useful information our educational system disseminates.
In short I find the AC +2 insightful as well
And at least you're a professional karma whore, I'm still an unranked amature.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
However, the term creationist, is more commonly used to describe those who disbelieve the theory of evolution, and it is these people, who my comment was aimed at.
And one minor point, on evolution speeding up, often it appears that way in the fossil record, however, none of the speeding up is beyond the theoretical rates of genetic change determined by lab based experiments.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
Evolution is fine for people who do not believe in a God. However, to those who do, it simply does not hold water. At least to me. There are major problems with evolution despite your original post's claim that it didn't need any help.
* The fossil record is not complete, indeed it is far from complete.
* Radiometric dating is inaccurate. Hardened lava from Mt. St. Helens that is known to be 8 years old tested, using the same equipment as archeologists to be 350,000 to 3,500,000 years old. It's theory relies on the even distribution of isotopes within the tested material. Since this simply is not the case, all radiometric dating is suspect.
So as a scientist I find big problems with evolution (these are just a couple). As a person who believes in a God, I cannot subscribe to the understanding of man as a trump the supremecy of God.
There are many Christians who believe in a old earth, with God using evolution as a tool to create life's diversity who would call themselves creationists.
I believe that the materials the earth is made of is old but not the earth itself (relatively speaking). While micro evolution may take place, Man did not evolve from anything and will not evolve to anything. This simply goes against the basic teachings of Christianity. At least the Christianity I believe in.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
On the contrary, part of my religion is that all truth comes from God. Just because I don't understand it or know about it does not make it any less than true. Despite my scepticism, I am not without humility in accepting truth when I know it to be so. So far, I have not found anything to contradict my beliefs.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
On the contrary, part of my religion is that all truth comes from God. Just because I don't understand it or know about it does not make it any less than true. Despite my scepticism, I am not without humility in accepting truth when I know it to be so. So far, I have not found anything to contradict my beliefs.
I reply:
The premise that all truth comes from God, is - as you observe - part of your religion. This presents several (well, at least two) problems: it assumes the truth of your religion at the start - rendering it impossible you to acknowledge the truth of anything contrary to your religion; and it implies that true things are 'given' to man by your God alone - wouldn't this imply that those affliated with other belief structures would not be capable of finding true things?
I can certainly understand and empathize with your humility with regard to knowledge; I agree that things can be understandable, and still not be understood yet (especially by me). However, wouldn't this humility require that you admit to uncertainty about the assumptions your religion is based upon?
I know, I know - probably coulda been phrased better; sorry, hope the points were clear enough without offending.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
Problem 1 as you state it, is that if I assume all truth comes from God (specifically the God I worship) then truth cannot come from other sources (other religons). I definately hold to my statement that truth can only come from God. However, let me clarify myself. Truth originates from God but can be manifested in many ways. The industrial revolution was categorized by many inventions that changed the way humans communicated, sheltered themselves, travelled and did business. Certainly the science behind these inventions can be considered truth. However, a precious few of these came about as a result of members of my religion. Therefore, just because a man or woman recieved a flash of inspiration to create invention X or cure for disease Y, does not mean the truth came from something other than God. In fact I would submit to you that indeed that is exactly where that inspiration/revelation/insight came from. I believe that we are all literal children of God and that He has a vested interest in us. That means that He wants us to learn and grow (just like we do for our own children). The point is, that we learn from Him directly and indirectly but it all comes from God.
However, wouldn't this humility require that you admit to uncertainty about the assumptions your religion is based upon?
Good question! I try to never assume anything. However, the basic tenents of any beleif in a Supreme Being tend to revolve around faith. This can be a tricky subject to understand, at least it was for me at first. To believe in something requires faith. I have faith that Russia exists though I have never seen it directly. I have seen pictures and even spoken to people from there. But in the end, I have to make a decision as to whether I believe in such a place. The same is true for believing God. I have never seen Him and don't remember being in heaven where He lives. But I have heard of people seeing Him (Moses/Mohammed/Peter) and so I have to make a choice. If you are really trying to have faith, then you need a desire to have it. This desire can then find a place to grow into faith. After a time the faith becomes knowledge. My religion makes very few assumptions and is pretty much founded on very basic principles. So I don't need to make any allowances for it. By definition, if I believe in a religion then there is no doubt. There was at one time, but I have had them satisfied enough for me.
hope the points were clear enough without offending.
It takes a lot to offend me so don't worry about it.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, I'm willing to accept that qualifications aren't everything. If you'd like to claim that earning a Masters of Archeology prejudices a person to believe in radiocarbon dating's accuracy, fine. It doesn't matter to me who presents the proof. Proof is proof. Perform a double-blind test here; publish your results.
The advantage to science is this; the biggest way to make a name for yourself is to disprove or enhance a long-standing theory. If you can prove that radiocarbon dating is inaccurate, you may not be popular at first, but you will be famous. But if you and your fellow creationists wish to be taken seriously, present proof based on facts. Speeches by other creationists (one of Kent Hovind's favorite sources) and "the bible says so" does not count as fact.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
But let's look at other problems with age issues: pleochroic halos [halos.com] of Polonium in granite. Don't bother trying to cite Brawley's weak counter to it on talkorigins, that is so full of already experimentally closed holes that it isn't worth the bandwidth to send people to look at it. Gentry experimentally proved, in a set of peer reviewed publications (Science, Nature, Geophysical Letters) that the halos could only have come from primordial Po.
And that means that the bedrock granite of the continents formed in seconds or minutes, not in millions of years. Gentry has repeatedly issued a challenge, a way to falsify his model, but no one has been willing to publish results of trying.
And then let's consider the issue of Helium; if the world were as old as evolutionists need it to be in order to believe in abiogenesis and "goo to you" evolution, then the amount of Helium in the atmosphere would be way higher than it is. And the amount of He in bedrock deposits would be a lot less, it would have diffused out millions or billions of years ago. But it hasn't, it's still in the rocks.
Radiometric dating, whenever an object of known age (Hawaiian volcanoes, Mt. Etna, Mt. St. Helens) is tested, comes up with big errors. By any reasonable standard, that shows that method is broken or falsified. Certainly not that it's reliable enough to base your belief system on, unless you are willing to make a leap of faith much greater than I would be willing to make.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, I've made no mention here of Gentry's notoriously sloppy methods and faulty assumptions (nice summary of these, with references, here [geocities.com]), as I wouldn't want you to think I'm attacking him personally, rather than his conclusions.
As for the helium, a creationist named Roger Lenard recently re-presented this tired old argument. Unfortunately, he, like most creation "scientists", presented no evidence for this theory. He did state that "a prestigious university" found that the amount of hydrogen in biotite is "too high", but no one ever comes clear on what "too high" is. Nor will he tell anyone where these measurements were performed, the name of the university, or even provide the data he cites as his sole reference. The paper many creationists look to for support here is actually by our good friend Gentry; however, even his statements do more to prove that the levels of helium currently present are exactly right for an evolutionary timescale. The "too-much-helium" argument has been discredited for years. Science cannot help it if creationists choose to ignore this.
However, none of this has anything to do with my original post. You've employed another common Creationist trick, which is to dodge the question by supplying more "proof" that other unrelated evolutionary methods/theories are faulty. So allow me to get back to the subject at hand...
You use inaccuracies in dating Hawaiian volcanic rock as proof that all radiometric dating is flawed. And you are absolutely correct, I find, in stating that wildly inaccurate dates are determined from potassium-argon analysis of this rock. However, you've neglected to mention that geologists already thought that rocks formed under those particular conditions would give unreliable K-Ar ages because they would trap argon before it could escape. The studies in question were performed to confirm this under controlled conditions, and thus to confirm to the scientific community that this particular type of rock (and, by extension, most rock of seabed origin) is unsuitable for radiometric dating.
Oops.
In addition, I'd like to know how this disproves the accuracy of other dating methods (uranium-lead and rubidium-strontium, for example), since these methods will all produce the same results in rocks with well-understood geological context. Confidence in radiometric dating techniques comes from years of careful comparisons to other radiometric techniques and to relative age determinations from biostratigraphy (fossils in layered rocks). In some cases, there are multiple isotope systems that may be analyzed in the same sample. Since these different systems react differently to the processes that disturb age recording, if the systems disagree with one another the age significance of the data is suspect. If they all agree, then there is phenomal evidence for the accuracy of the dating.
As for the accuracy potassium-argon dating having any bearing on carbon-14 dating (the kind used to date organic artifacts up to 50,000 years old), this is ludicrous. The two methods have very little in common, and carbon-14 dating is known to depend on variations in atmospheric conditions.
So where's the leap of faith? The only one I've seen so far is the one that leads to your ghetto of scientific illiteracy.
For more references, information, and general illumination, read this very helpful document: The General Anti-Creationism FAQ [talkorigins.org]
Here are rebuttals, with evidence and references, to all of the arguments you've thus far presented, as well as all of the other major creationist arguments.
Read the sources! (Score:1)
First, you claim that Gentry has never published a rebuttal. That is an inaccurate claim. He did not publish in the same journal as the source materials for his refutation, the same journal as published Odom and Rink, Science.
If you read Gentry's book, you can see (pages 327-330) the letters from Science where they refused to publish either of rebuttal papers Gentry offered to Odom and Rink's 1989 paper, despite the fact that the rebuttal was based on papers previously published in Science. The anti-creationist bias in their refusals is clear.
Gentry's answer, which was refused publication for clearly specious reasons, was based on his 1968, 1971, and 1974 papers in the exact same journal. He had already foreseen that counterpoint and had experimentally disproven it. Of course when the originating journal (Science) refused to allow him to answer, he chose to publish in an alternative. The answer had to be made - it was certainly not his choice to do it in an alternate.
In addition Odom's letter to Gentry (which you can also read in Gentry's book), dated 10/27/89, clearly states that he did not have a Po halo. Odom additionally mentions that he has only two Al halos. So you're basing your counter-argument to Gentry's decades of exhaustive research on the interpretations of someone who has not even observed what Gentry's research is all about! That is far from, to use your word, Gentry's theory being "supplanted". If you are open to investigating this for yourself, I suggest you read Gentry's articles or his book for yourself, don't rely on the summaries done by others such as the link you provided.
Why did Science refuse to allow the rebuttal to be made in their pages (they as a rule do allow an author to answer a counter-paper)? Can you say "bias"??? When Gentry wrote in Science and Nature in the 60s through early 80s, he did not advertise his data as supporting a creationist view. Once he started to do so, the journals started shutting him out.
Your statement that you weren't attacking him personally, but then including a link to a site which does so, does raise some issues, left as an exercise for the reader to interpret.
As to excess He (not hydrogen as you stated), the issue again is thoroughly dealt with in Gentry's published research. It was published in Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 9, No. 10, Pages 1129-1130, October 1982, and was co-written with Glish and McBay, scientists at the analytical chemistry division of ORNL. A paper was also published in Science about it. Your bold assertion that he did no more that show the levels were "just right" for evolution doesn't make it so; the amount of He in deep zircons is far higher than billions of years allow. Again I suggest you read the original papers.
Now to K-Ar dating. Let's just ignore the seabed case - there are still the Mt. St. Helens and the Mt. Etna data to look at. Those two provide hard evidence that in at least those two cases that K-Ar does not work as a reliable dating method when the age of the rock is known. I'm sure lots of theories could be advanced as to why (and may have been), but the bottom line has to be: when the age of a rock is known, the results aren't what was predicted. So why then accept the results when the age is unknown? What unforeseen events could make dating anything else with K-Ar magically more accurate?
I find it so interesting to see you cite index fossils as proof of radiometric dating. Particularly since if you ask geologists, you'll usually get an answer that dating is done in a layer by looking at the fossils. Then ask a biologist and he/she will tell you that the dating is done by the rocks in the strata. Round and round we go, where we stop, nobody knows - circular reasoning, anyone?
As for the U-Pb, Ru-Sr, and isochron dating methods, if you are really interested, I suggest the book "Mythology of Modern Dating Methods". It's a ponderous read, but does a far better job of addressing your concerns than I could ever do in a
So I stand by my comment that it takes more faith to believe in radiometric dating, index fossils determining age, and billions of years than it does to accept the hard, unrefuted evidence of things like Po halos and admit the earth is young, not old. Believing something in the face of contrary facts, such as thinking that K-Ar is reliable as a dating method, has to take a huge amount of faith. I don't say there's anything wrong with faith; I just wish it would be admitted that evolutionism is as much a religious viewpoint (look at the vehemence of its defenders!) as creationism.
May you be as happy in your faith as I am in mine.
The above posts defense of Gentry in a nutshell (Score:1)
To which I can only add; don't forget to shut the door on your way out.
Re:The above posts defense of Gentry in a nutshell (Score:1)
What further qualifications are you suggesting he should have?
Re:The above posts defense of Gentry in a nutshell (Score:1)
The ability to form conclusions that are fully consistent with the scientific method, ie. not saying that there is irrefutable proof of god in a particular phenomenon, when natural explanations do exist.
Re:The above posts defense of Gentry in a nutshell (Score:1)
The above long post of mine showed that every counter to Gentry has been experimentally disproven in peer-reviewed journals.
So what natural explanations, held to the same level of scrutiny and peer review, do you have to cite to explain the halos?
Re:The above posts defense of Gentry in a nutshell (Score:1)
I couldn't find the citation (in a peer reviewed journal) where Gentry rebutes Odium. Just a whole lot of excuses as too why Science didn't publish him. Also, just because Gentry and yourself don't believe that a natural explanation exists, doesn't mean that other geologists believe it. Given that all crediable geological societies support a old earth that cooled over a timescan significantly longer than Gentry's research would allow, I don't find it unresonable to suggest that geological community finds Gentrys conclusions to be weak and unsupported.
Re:The above posts defense of Gentry in a nutshell (Score:1)
Again, why Gentry did not get to publish in Science was covered in the above post. To repeat - Science flat refused to publish either of his defenses. You seem to ignore the fact that Odom wrote a letter to Gentry after the article was published, a letter in which he not only stated that he had no Po halos, but in which he also stated that Science had dictated that he remove portions of his article that mentioned instantaneous creation as an alternate explanation. Science censored Odom's article, so what were the odds that they'd allow Gentry a fair chance to rebut? Also in the letter from Odom to Gentry is: "Jack and I would be very happy to see you investigate these halos, and if possible test our model."
Gee, doesn't sound like Odom thought poorly of Gentry does it. In fact it sounds like Odom is looking to Gentry as the acknowledged expert in the field (which he certainly is).
I understand that it's disturbing to see hard evidence against something that you believe strongly; are you willing to possibly consider looking into it rather than just throwing words around?
Re:The above posts defense of Gentry in a nutshell (Score:1)
Ok, let me get this straight, Odom (who respects Gentry, and see's him as "the acknowledged expert in the field") publishs a natural explanation of the Po halos, despite knowing that Gentry (who he respects etc etc) has already rebutted his findings in early papers (there is no way that Odom can't have read Gentry's earlier papers). Sorry, but that means that eith Odom and the reviewers of his article have no crediablity, or Gentry is full of it.
Giving his replies (I have read a webpage (which I can't quite remember where it is) which stated (and I'm assuming that it is based on Gentry's rebuttal to Brewley's work) which claimed that Po halo's couldn't be due Rn, because of the lack of cracks for Rn to diffuse through, and the lack of Po path's formed from decaying Rn) to people such as John Brawley's Rn theory, ignores several important parts of Brawley's theory (that Rn can travel through very very spaces, such as gaps in the xtal lattice, and that it U decay's into Rn at a very small rate), I'll would suspect that Gentry is full of it.
I understand that it's disturbing to see hard evidence against something that you believe strongly; are you willing to possibly consider looking into it rather than just throwing words around?
Perhaps you should ask yourself the same question, remeber that even if no natural explaination can explain Po halo's (which I doubt very much), you still have to ignore all of modern geology to get a young earth (have you ever wondering why the vast vast majority of earth scientists believe in a old earth? - it's not because of the a great evolution conspiracy, nor because they are stupid). From what I've seen of your posts over the last few days, you seem like a intelligent person, but one who has been duped by a bunch of frauds and liers (I'm talking more about Steve Austin and co, rather than Gentry - who I have a lot more respect for). Perhaps you should check out some of the online work that provides a Christian perspective of evolution?
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
While Steve Austin may have used the same techniques as other researchers, he didn't use the same techniques. Lava is completely liquid, it often contains solid lumps (which are much much older). Austin claims to have removed the gabbro xenoliths, but doesn't mention removing other older artifacts. His own pictures of the rocks show the presence of zoned feldspars. The zoned appearance indicates a very slow cooling history (hundreds of thousands to millions of years). My source [geocities.com] for this information concludes with this statement on the Mt. St. Helen's dating:
"His glass and feldspar fraction is probably a mixture of young glass, old Ca-feldspars, and sodium-rich feldspars that have an intermediate age. Not surprisingly, this mixture gave a younger age of about 340,000 years, but still much older than 1986 AD. His whole rock age was no doubt affected by a mixture of young glass, older feldspar and pyroxene phenocrysts and some possibly ancient xenocrysts or lightly colored (hard to see) xenoliths. In conclusion, Austin's results do NOTHING to refute the validity of K/Ar dating."
Also, the labs which Steve Austin used carry disclaimers about the accuracy of technique when used on young rocks. He ignored this.
The fact that orthodox publications wouldn't accept it for publication tells more about their prejudice than the veracity of the facts.
No, the fact that scientific publications didn't accept it is that it isn't science, rather it is propaganda for those who beliefs are threatened by reality.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
I will be the first to admit that I don't know where to find it. However, why would you ask me this when you go on to say in this thread, "The studies in question were performed to confirm this under controlled conditions, and thus to confirm to the scientific community that this particular type of rock (and, by extension, most rock of seabed origin) is unsuitable for radiometric dating."
So it sounds like bait to me and I won't waste time replying, which young-earth was kind enough to do.
Anything a fellow creationist comes up with, that fits what you want to believe, is accepted as fact without question.
What a load of crap. Of course you say yourself that qualifications aren't everything and can even prejudice a person. I don't claim to have all the definitive proof for Creation. But I do claim to believe in a God who has children that look just like Him and do so for a very good reason. I also claim that the earth was made (by divinity or not) by materials that themselves are very old. I also believe that those materials did not exist in an elemental state as those who hold to the stellar disk model would have you believe.
But if you and your fellow creationists wish to be taken seriously, present proof based on facts.
That's the problem. I don't seek to change your mind. I seek to gain understanding. I don't want to convince you that you are wrong or to necessarily be taken seriously by you. I have come to believe in God from a very personal set of experiences and I don't expect you or anyone else to do so because of anything I say. As for fact, that is a very elusive and subjective thing in my opinion. Else why would science continue to change over the years if it was based on fact from the beginning?
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:2)
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
Biologists recognise no fundamental differences between micro- and macro- evolution. However, if it's a speciation event that you want you could look at this page [talkorigins.org] which contains many links to speciation events in the scientific lit.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
The problem with reasoning like this is its naivety. Changes are cumulative, they do not go away automatically, magically, or because you wish they would. The second law of thermodynamics forbids it. There is no simple means to differentiate between "micro" and "macro" evolution when there is only a continuum of variation. Even saying that "they are still E. coli" is simplistic on a drastic scale. Recent evidence shows that bacteria exchange genetic information across species boundaries. So, given that they may be meandering around the petri dish with genes acquired from S. aureus as well other fun neighbors, what makes you certain that they ever were, much less still are E. coli. Its possible that the concept of "species" has been reified beyond any utility it ever had. Think about it.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
Fine. damn there all of Slashdot agrees with you. This means your comment had to have been ment for flamebait.
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists. (Score:1)
microevolution and genetic modifications (Score:1, Interesting)
1. I have to rant about Darwinism only pertaining to microevolution. There's not been much evidence where ecological diversity (large scale speciation) is caused by Darwinism. In fact, Stephen J. Gould's punctuated equilibrium theory breaks neo-Darwinism as the principle mechanism for macroevolution.
2. This sort of discovery however, is interesting in that this sort of technique can be termed 2nd order GM. Where GM as we normally see it is usually mimicking rapid breeding by horizontal gene transfer instead of waiting for the organism to acquire them through generational breeding, this discovery allows us to use the patterns developed from accelerated breeding (or GM) to create new things.
3. "In the quest to create the cure-all of the 21st century, a nemesis was created" MI:2 anyone?
4. "Unknown to the public and even its employees, the Umbrella corporation primarily conducts research for the military in areas such as genetic engineering and viral warfare...." ResEvil anyone?
Re:microevolution and genetic modifications (Score:1)
Punctuated equilibrium theory is easily explained by the tendency of large mutations to be extremely disadvantageous. When a large advantageous mutation comes along, it tends to wipe everything else out.
Nothing terribly new there.
sounds inherently... (Score:2, Interesting)
"You can introduce a lot of mutations in the lab," explains Hall. "In effect, you can take millions of copies of this gene and give each one a different mutation." Those mutated genes are introduced back into the cells, "and then you ask, can you grow on lactose now?"
So basically you screw 'em up somehow and then torture them. I know that they're just microbes but it still... if you prick them do they not bleed? The process is still, "Ooh, you still alive, *zap* how 'bout now? Still kickin'? *zap* how 'bout now? Nope? *zap* how 'bout now?" Perhaps I have too much imagination but just picture this with fuzzy animals... not funny "ha ha" funny strange.
Re:sounds inherently... (Score:1)
Re:sounds inherently... (Score:1)
Re:sounds inherently... (Score:1)
*LOL* it's spelled J-O-K-E. You make too many assumptions! I used to do experiments on lab rats and flies when I was a biology student just like everybody else... Inherently any experimentation on emergent systems requires the use of a selector or predation algorithm. This guy happens to be applying the same principles I used when developing evolutionary models inside a computer (using EA or evolutionary algorithms [uni-erlangen.de]), only he's applying them to living organisms. A better title for the article would be Principa Evolvica in a Petri Dish
But I do think it's funny that the researcher is sitting in his lab frying little organisms and performing an EA step by step essentially by hand. Which is to say he generates a population, runs predation or selectors, reproduces and mutates, runs predation, reproduce and mutate, predate, mutate,
Isn't that a lot of work? (Score:2, Insightful)
i reccon that must amount to at least 40*365.25=15 thousand reproductions, multiply this with 4*3 million if you want to change (not cut one out, add one or anything) just 1 base pair per reproduction and it starts to become a mind boggling big project.
And sure, there are a lot of paths that won't result in viable bacteria, but still..
can someone tell me how they do this and where my calculations go wrong?
else it is a very interesting idea, researching all possibililities... i wonder when we will be able to do this with human genes... just to find out what kind of creatures may evolve from our genome in due time.
Re:Isn't that a lot of work? (Score:2, Interesting)
The key point here is the selection pressure will tend to result in the same types of mutations regardless of how the genes are mutated - you don't get a whole host of weird mutations to enable the bacteria to survive, only a few key protein changes are beneficial.
Artificial societies (Score:4, Interesting)
Check out the article on artificial societies [theatlantic.com] from the current (April 2002) issue of Atlantic Monthly [theatlantic.com]. I was thinking of submitting it to Slashdot anyway, but it particularly relates to this discussion too. The header blurb is:
The article goes on to discuss many applications of this technique. None of them are specifically about genetic evolution, though one does analyze the settlement patterns of a pre-Columbian society in the American southwest, and the computed simulation, given information about climate patterns and so on, does roughly mimic what the archaeological record suggests really happened to the Anasazi.
The interesting thing is that the simulations, including this one, are really not much more sophisticated than Conway's famous "life" AI experiments -- they take a couple of crude populations and set up trivial rules, and then run with them until a pattern emerges. In spite of how crude these simulations are, the parallels to the observed world can be striking, suggesting that such simulations can be used to understand evolution, historical trends, racism, genocide, economics, etc.
Re:Artificial societies (Score:2)
Re:Artificial societies (Score:1)
Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:1)
"...Evolutionists don't want the weaknesses of evolutionary theory to be known to the public. In fact the negative effects of engaging in a debate with a Creation Scientist is so bad that evolutionist, Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, Berkeley, California, says, "Avoid Debates. If your local campus Christian fellowship asks you to 'defend evolution,' please decline....you probably will get beaten" [creationists.org]
Don't get me wrong, creationists' theory seem a little strange... but I still find the lack of evidence for macro evolution quite compelling.
Just my $0.02
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:1)
Relax. there is plenty of evidence for macro evolution. Speciation events (that is the creation of new species) have been observed directly, plus the fossil record has plenty examples (human evolution is a great example of this).
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:1)
Really?!? I would love a link or reference on this one! Seeing as how my wife is a biologist and I frequently speak with University professors on this topic and have *never* heard of this, it would be quite a surprise. I anxiously await your reply.
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:1)
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:1)
I will look them up. However, from the description, it seems that they are more closely related to 'micro' than 'macro' evolution. One has to decide where to draw the line and science makes it convenient with standard definitions. I don't see how interbreeding (or lack thereof) in and of itself makes it an evolutionary change.
Are the professors you ask actually evolutionary biologists, or are they molecular/cellular folks? Asking the molecular people about specific speciation events is like asking evolutionary biologists about specific enzymatic mechanisms - it's biology, but not the kind they know the guts of.
One evolutionary biologist and two paleontologists. I am focusing my efforts now on the human evolution side because this seems much more pertinent to my beliefs. There happens to be a great deal of information on human evolution studies so it is taking me quite some time to go through it. So far, nothing that satisfies the scientific community's own standards for fact has been found by me.
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:2)
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:1)
Good question. I don't if we *have* to, but it seems convenient to a lot scientists to categorize things. For me, it is simply this: to say that one organism changes into another is quite different from saying that it simply changes. Genetically speaking, the organisms are different that is true, but some of the differences are so miniscule that it is only noticeable to the very keen minded researcher.
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:1)
Come on... chimps and humans are genetically very similar, but hopefully it's not just the keen mined researchers that can tell the difference between the two.
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:1)
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:1)
You have misread the article [talkorigins.org] in question. While some of the species required genetic tests to tell the difference between them. Many others didn't.
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:1)
And observe the fact that for many decades, fruit flies have been bombarded with gamma and other radiation in the lab. Tons of mutations have been observed. Every one was the result of a loss of information - as the four-winged one shows, it was a loss of three crucial genes that turned the counterbalance limbs into wings. No movement toward a new species has been seen yet. The number of generations and the amount of induced mutations indicate that evolution is not happening in situations where that was the goal. It's not possible to prove a negative, but the evidence is piling up on poor Darwin.
Remember that Darwin himself said that if the cell was found to be anything but a very simple object, his theory would be disproved. Every year we hear of more and more amazing complex things inside bacteria, from flaggela motors to ion pumps that it's very hard to look and and not see DESIGN stamped on them.
And please, don't bring up the peppered moths (faked by Kettlewell et al.), nor horse fossils (seeing as Hyrax is still alive, and that in places the "descendants" were found in layers below their "ancestors").
And since the earth has been shown to have formed rapidly, the evidence [halos.com] being published in several prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journals and never refuted in the peer-reviewed journals (don't bother citing the talkorigins article by Brawley, Gentry disproved that objection experimentally many years ago), there wasn't time for macro-evolution anyway.
Re:Micro-evolution = yes, Macro = no (Score:2, Insightful)
"...Evolutionists don't want the weaknesses of evolutionary theory to be known to the public. In fact the negative effects of engaging in a debate with a Creation Scientist is so bad that evolutionist, Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, Berkeley, California, says, ?Avoid Debates. If your local campus Christian fellowship asks you to ?defend evolution,? please decline....you probably will get beaten" [creationists.org]
The quote from Eugenie Scott is probably accurate, and as a student of molecular biology and biology enthusiast I have encountered the same advice on several occassions. In fact, a similar observation is early in the preamble to the excellent "Abusing Science: The case against creationism" by Philip Kitcher. Humorously enough though, it isn't the weakness of Evolution that prompt this advice, but the weaknesses of "Creation Science".
Virtually every old, threadworn, thoroughly debunked fallacy from a hundred years or more ago is still part of the "Creation Science" arsenal vs Evolution - just because a claim has been closely inspected and soundly refuted doesn't mean that a "Creation Science" advocate won't trot it out. As a result, it is easily possible to embarass Evolutionists by simple "Crapflooding" - a "Creation Science" advocate can trot out more shoddy thinking in thirty seconds than can be cleaned up by even the best prepared Evolutionists careful scholarship in thirty hours. The result? The audiences attention wanders off, and the lesson carried home by everyone is 'Well, the Evolutionist couldn't refute everything...'
The evidence against "Creation Science" is out there, it is thourough, complete, and utterly ignored by "Creation Science" advocates (the talk-origins faq is probably a good starting point)- because they are only trying to promote an agenda. Solution? Don't try to argue - it is impossible to move them from their position, even if you did manage to convince them - denying them a forum is the one of the only ways to keep the pseudo-science from spreading. The other is a good education, complete with scientific literacy and critical thinking skills; a seemingly impossible dream for public schools here in the US.
More of a rant than I really intended - hope I didn't offend, but this is one of my pet peeves...
Re:Unless... (Score:1)
riiight..
This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolution (Score:4, Informative)
That's why once the antibiotic is removed the population drifts back to the norm - the un-selected bacteria are more fit, have more diversity to draw on, in other situations..
Yet another headline that is a bit over the top
Re:This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolutio (Score:1)
There is no fundamental difference between micro- and macro- evolution. Since we are into analogies, believing in microevolution but not macroevolution, is like saying 1 + 1 = 2, but 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 doesn't equal 5.
That's why once the antibiotic is removed the population drifts back to the norm - the un-selected bacteria are more fit, have more diversity to draw on, in other situations..
Likewise any population which has a evolution pressure removed, will no longer evolve in response to the pressure. Quite elementary, and hardly a critism of evolution.
Yet another headline that is a bit over the top
Given that evolution is the action of natural selection on random mutation, antibiotic resistance in bacteria, is a excellent example of it.
Re:This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolutio (Score:1)
But that is not evolution; it's a loss of genetic diversity and information that happened.
Re:This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolutio (Score:1)
Macroevolution is simply micro- evolution with a bit more time.
One is easily proven, the other is not.
Wrong. Both are easily proven to the satifisation of the scientific community. It's just that one is harder for pseudoscientists to deny.
Re:This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolutio (Score:1)
A proven scientific theorem, which it appears you are claiming macro-evolution is, has by convention a requirement that it provide not only predictions of outcomes of repeatable experiments, but also a parameter or set of parameters by which it could be falsified. For example, Einstein stated in his relativity papers that if light were not bent by gravity, that his theory would be shown false. But of course the eclipse of the sun showed that light was bent by gravity.
So what are the repeatable experiments you can cite for macro-evolution?
What are the falsifiablility criteria?
Re:This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolutio (Score:1)
Given that macro- evolution is evolutin above the species level, all that I need to show are experiments which have been repeated which show speciation events. You could try Newton and Pellew (Genetics, 1929, 20:405-467) or perhaps Rice and Salt (Evolution, 1990, 44:1140-1152).
What are the falsifiablility criteria?
* Had DNA studies not found close relationships between humans and great apes, with these relationships falling off with a greater age of common ancestors, it would have been falsified.
* Likewise for other related species.
* A lack of vestigial structures would harm the theory of evolution.
* If human biochemistry was substantial different to the biochemistry of other animals (in particular, the great apes), evolution would come a cropper.
* If evolution failed to explain modern biochemisty, then likewise evolution would fall apart.
* If young fossils (by this, I mean species that were thought to have evolved recently) were found in old rocks without a logical means of them getting there, then evolution would be falsified.
* If the dominant theory had of inheritance in Darwin's time stood the test of time (ie. no Mendel), then Darwin's theory of evolution (not evolution itself) would run into trouble.
* Evidence for a young earth wouldn't falsify Darwin's theory (it could still occur, but just hasn't been given the time to interact in a meaningful way.
* If a series of proto-human's fossils hadn't been found, the theory of evolution would have to be considerable revised to account for the lack of fossils.
* If the rate of genetic change observed in the lab was less than what it appears to be in the fossil record, then evolution would be wrong.
* If the creationist misintrepetation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics was correct, then evolution, along with life would be falsified.
Can you do the same for creationism? That is provide references to repeatable experiments and falsifiable criteria?
Re:This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolutio (Score:1)
Vestigial structures - yes a lack of them does harm the theory of evolution. Did you know that 186 vestigial structures were thought to be in the human body in the late 1800's - and that every one of them has now been shown to have a significant role in life. The appendix, for example, the classic case cited by evolutionists in time past, is now known to be a major help to the immune system. Yes you can live without it, but you can also live without your eyes. Doesn't mean they're not real useful.
Of course biochemistry is compatible across species - if it weren't, we couldn't all eat the same foods, live in the same world, breath the same air.
As to fossils - how about frozen, unfossilized dinosaur bones? They should not exist, millions of years or not. Yet they do, in Alaska and Siberia.
I think you may be mixing neo-Darwinian (Mendelian genetics mixed with natural selection) with pure Darwinism. I can't parse the rest of your statement about Darwin; could you rephrase?
True, neo-Darwinism could indeed still work with a young earth, point well taken. However nothing much would have happened in the short time frame, so it wouldn't matter a whole lot.
Proto-humans. Ignoring the mass amounts of fakes (Piltdown, Nebraska, Java, etc.), we get to things like Neandertals. Did you know that they are just heavily arthritic, very old people? An orthodondist examined the fossils and found that their maxillofacial development is just an extended version of what happens to us now. Kind of like humans that lived to be hundreds of years old. Not proven but interesting.
The rate of genetic change in the lab is, sadly for evolution, only in the negative direction. No new organs, enzymes, or structures have come forth - only damaged genes.
I don't hold to the second law of thermo way of saying evolution doesn't happen, I personally think that's a weak argument. I don't disagree with you on that.
Realize one thing please - I don't ask you to believe in creationism; I just ask that you consider that evolution is broken as a theory. Something better needs to replace it. Time to move on and admit it's over. Science has done that in the past, always after a long period of denial. It was 50 years after the speed of light was measured as roughly correct (by timing Io's eclipsing around Jupiter) before it was accepted. If something as easily repeated as that took that long, then evolution will take longer I fear.
Re:This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolutio (Score:1)
You seem to be using a whole heap of selective evidence. Perhaps you show check out this post [talkorigins.org] from talk origins, from a ex-creationist on his use of selective evidence.
For example, your paragraph on proto-humans is extremely misleading. You when you ignore the fakes (incidently both Java and Nebraska men weren't fakes), you don't get to Neandertals. The source of your information is being highly dishonest. Perhaps you are unaware of Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus anamensis, Australopithecus afarensis, Kenyanthropus platyops, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus, Australopithecus robustus, Australopithecus boisei, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Homo antecessor, and Homo heidelbergensis. For a very good reference source check out this page [talkorigins.org]. As for your orthodondist (could you also please supply a citation to his peer reviewed report), my girlfriend has studied archeology and biology under both Colin Groves (very famous evolutionary biologist) and Alan Thorne (discoverer of the Mungo Man), and from her, I am well aware that the researchers take into account bone diseases. Plus your claim that Neandertals are just heavily arthritic old people is proved false by mitochondria DNA studies, which show them to be very far removed genetically removed from "mainstream" humanity (Check out here [nature.com] and here [nature.com], as well as Krings M., Capelli C., Tschentscher F., Geisert H., Meyer S., von Haeseler A. et al (Nature Genetics, 2000, 26:144-6) for more information).
Your other points are just as weak as the human evolution one detailed above. If you want, I can go into detail on them.
As for rephrasing the Medal and Darwin comments; when Darwin first proposed his theory, the common held view about genetics (that traits where blended, ie, the child of a small person and a tall person would be of a medium height) provide a theoretical barrier to evolution (at least of the theoretical model of evolution provided by Darwin), this lead to the Darwin's predicting that the genetics was wrong. The answer to this problem came from Medel's work on peas, while this was done in Darwin's time, it was largely unknown (ironically, Darwin had a large book on genetics which included Medel's work, but never made the connection between Medel's peas and his own theoretical problem). This problem was solved by a variety of researchers who combined Darwin's theory with Mendel's, the synthesis of the two being call neodarwinism, which is the currently accepted view of how evolution occurs.
Re:This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolutio (Score:1)
If you're going to continue, let's get back to Gentry, the topic that started this thread. Otherwise it's not going to get anywhere.
Re:This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolutio (Score:1)
Nebraska man was a misintrepreted bone. You stated that it was a fake. This is totally incorrect.
If your going to dismiss reality because it doens't fit with your worldview, that nice, but I've never lost so much respect for a person so fast. I agree, there is no point carrying on these posts. Have a good day.
umm (Score:1)
re: Ummm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Predicting the future of organisms? (Score:2)
Prediction of survival techniques, not evolution! (Score:1)
Conclusion: yes, it's a sort of evolution predicted, but it doesn't shed any light on predicting 'normal' evolution. That's a random process resulting in possible advantages spanning (thousands of) years, not an overnight process to overcome a factor that, until now, wasn't limiting for the survival of the species at all.
The important issue here is that pharmacologists have ways now to predict certain strategies by microbes to overcome the potential danger of an antibiotic.
The claim cannot be evolution! (Score:2)
I suggest the poster misunderstood the article.
Re:The claim cannot be evolution! (Score:1)
my thoughts on this threading (Score:1)