Darwinian Evolution Considered As a Phase 313
LucidBeast tips a mind-bending report at New Scientist on the latest paradigm-breaking work of Carl Woese, one of whose earlier discoveries was the third branch of life on Earth, the Archaea. Woese and physicist Nigel Goldenfeld argue that, even in its sophisticated modern form, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection applies only to a recent phase of life on Earth. Woese and Goldenfeld believe that horizontal evolution led to the rise of the genetic code itself. "At the root of this idea is overwhelming recent evidence for horizontal gene transfer — in which organisms acquire genetic material 'horizontally' from other organisms around them, rather than vertically from their parents or ancestors. The donor organisms may not even be the same species. This mechanism is already known to play a huge role in the evolution of microbial genomes, but its consequences have hardly been explored. According to Woese and Goldenfeld, they are profound, and horizontal gene transfer alters the evolutionary process itself."
I realize scientists need a breakthrough (Score:3, Insightful)
I strongly suspect it isn't, nor was it ever, one type of evolution over the other, but a complex interaction between many environmental pressures where both types of evolution played a role.
You Need the Right Tools (Score:2, Insightful)
Genetic Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
It's still natural selection (Score:4, Insightful)
It's what's for dinner. (Score:4, Insightful)
I am going to come over there and take all your stuff and I'm going to kill you and take your weapons and use them for myself!!!
If you're really nice and sweet I'll beat the crap out of you and then stick you in my kitchen to make food for me.
The second is referring to mitochondria not kitchen bitches.
You raise an interesting point here (Score:2, Insightful)
One of the issues I've been thinking a lot about lately is the psychological principle of certainty. When you say "...scientists just keep reforming their ideas until it conforms to observable reality. How can they expect anyone to believe what they say when they're just going to keep changing their minds?" you hit upon something important: certainty of belief. How can the average layperson trust scientific opinion when said scientific opinion says "This is FACT... until it's not"? People require certainty of belief in order to operate. They have to know that gravity means you're pulled down, the sun will rise in the east, that the Bernoulli theorem will always work when they're flying. They incorporate these facts into their daily operation and worldview.
So when scientists say "X is true" and then come along several years later and say "No, we were wrong, Y is true" and then come along several years alter and say "Both X and Y were wrong, now Z is true", the average person cannot count on the certainty of X, Y, or Z, or that the scientists are correct. Regardless of the fact that most citizens are taught the scientific process in school, most of them don't retain it because it has little to no impact on their daily lives (they take for granted the progress we've made). And thus, we get people who deny global climate change, or that we walked on the moon, or that vaccines work.
Here on /., we all argue over these topics and for the most part, we understand the scientific process (whether we agree with its findings is a whole other story). We may argue, fight, and haggle, but eventually we do reach a consensus. However, the average citizen never does, and I think that's why we have so much skepticism towards evolution, or climate change, or space flight, or vaccines, or science in general, and why so many choose to cling to organized religion (Up until Vatican II for instance, Catholic dogma had not changed much since the seventh century - that's pretty damn static).
I hope you don't mind me airing my opinion here. I just thought you raised a really interesting point and wanted to call some attention to it. We on /. tend to forget that most of the world's population has no idea what Science is: to them, scientific progress is indistinguishable from magic.
Re:Well duh? (Score:2, Insightful)
As opposed to heterosexual behavior? I hear the fluids transferred are remarkably similar.
Re:Still natural selection (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it's a mechanism for directly passing on traits (via a direct transfer), which is closer to Lamarckian evolution than Darwinian evolution, in the classic 19th-century dispute. But you're right that it's not a huge challenge to modern evolutionary theory. What it might pose somewhat more of a problem for are certain areas of phylogenetics, especially cladistics [wikipedia.org] that rely fairly heavily on an assumption that evolutionary trees are indeed trees.
Viruses (Score:5, Insightful)
Horizontal transfer isn't really over, either - we still have retroviruses.
Re:I realize scientists need a breakthrough (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree.
It always seemed a little odd that evolutionists minimized such interactions as the bacteria that lives on, and IN, us as little more then a symbiotic relationship.
The idea that some genetic material might actually be passed from ourselves to these bacteria, or the other way around, seemed to make sense. I'm not talking about large chunks of DNA, but rather a codon or two every dozen generations, or something to that effect. Given that mutations/variations are more likely to occur in two species, as opposed to one, that symbiotic relationship might have accelerated genetic changes in either, or both, species. Who knows, maybe our ability to digest some specific foodstuff (a foodstuff that we previously relied on a bacteria in our gut to help us digest/process) was derived from genetic material that originally came from a bacteria that had the ability but was passed on to us a codon at a time. Just an example.
This leads me to the question of whether or not our preoccupation with sanitization/sterilization of our own bodies might be having some detrimental effect on our EVOLUTION. Is our wiping out species, to the point of extinction, actually limiting the evolutionary process, in essence limiting variation in the exchange of genetic material?
Re:Genetic Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, except that the mechanisms involved in horizontal gene transfer are already key tools in genetic engineering. The notionally big deal here is the idea that because of the dominance of horizontal gene transfer as a primary mechanism of gene transfer, there was a time when organism-centered evolution wasn't the primary mode of evolution, and that instead the units on which evolution operated were genes themselves. The case has been made previously (and popularized by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene) that while organisms are convenient proxies in lots of cases, genes ought to be considered the unit on which selection works even now, and that doing so was both more practically useful and more sensible in terms of the logical coherence of the model than using the organism as the fundamental unit on which evolution works.
In any case, it may be a mistake to contrast this with "Darwinian evolution" particularly in the "modern sense", since Darwinian evolution is recognized as a general process which applies when certain factors are present, no matter what the unit on which it works happens to be (and this generality is important to its applications in machine learning and is at the heart of the concept of memetics.)
GM Foods anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Genetically modified foods are like the "artificial selection" equivalent of nature / natural selection - if the transfer of genes can happen from one set of species to another, then GM crops are kinds of an accelerated / selective version of this. If I were Monsanto or another big GM food company, I'd be looking to twist this into "Genetic material gets transferred to other species in nature, what's wrong with us doing it?"
Re:Here's A Tip, Folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Sincerely, the misinformed
Re:Well duh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just why is it that ultra-conservative rants about God or racial superiority or anti-socialism are instantly modded off-topic, troll, and/or flamebait until they sink beneath the thresh hold
You're seriously asking this question?
and yet completely off-topic attacks on Creationism in every story even vaguely connected with biology or evolution get modded +5 insightful?
I think you are exaggerating.
Let me explain... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just why is it that ultra-conservative rants about God or racial superiority or anti-socialism are instantly modded off-topic, troll, and/or flamebait until they sink beneath the thresh hold and yet completely off-topic attacks on Creationism in every story even vaguely connected with biology or evolution get modded +5 insightful?
Same reason why at least someone will look favorably on the fact that you may have served pizza for desert, while you will be forever banished from the kitchen (and other places) if you serve up a pile of dung.
Both are off-topic, but while one still satisfies the basic requirements - the other is a pile of shit.
In the case of pizza - it is still food; in case of pointing out the errors of creationism - it is still a discussion about evolutionary theories, it only digresses towards pointing out the wrong ones.
Creationism and a plate full of dung - a pile of shit.
Re:Well duh? (Score:1, Insightful)
I think you are exaggerating.
I'm not exaggerating in the least; look around. I see at least one +5 post in every biology or evolution topic that exclusively concerns bashing creationism and only half of the time even mentions the topic at hand.
You're seriously asking this question?
Of course I'm not seriously asking why ultra-conservative rants get modded down as if I believe they shouldn't, I was just contrasting the constant stream of hate stupid, vitriolic conservatives get with the near-acceptance stupid, vitriolic anti-Christians receive.
darwin didn't know the details? shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
Have Woese and Goldenfeld a brilliant new idea? All they're saying, I think, is that "parent" and "child" are the appropriate units of selection only when genes are passed vertically: from parent to child. They're suggesting that horizontal gene transfer is underrated as a historical evolutionary force.
Agree or not, it hardly undermines Darwin. Genes weren't known in the 19th century. Darwin didn't have a clue about genes, so we're gonna knock him for being "wrong" about it? I mean, was Jesus wrong about genes, too? It's anachronistic silliness.
Science is fundamentally dynamic. Any science that hasn't progressed in 150 years ain't doing too well. (Dear creationists: stop calling us "Darwinists." We've moved on.) I mean, The Origin came out in 1859, for crying out loud! Darwin was more brilliant, more insightful, and rightly more famous than I'll ever be. But if we both had to take a biology test right now, I'd kill him.
Re:Once again (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people treat what they call science as a religion. They go wild that someone reads a book and believes the far fetched ideas in it, yet they have no problem reading something off wikipedia and assuming its fact.
The claim is that you CAN test and confirm it, but they don't, they just blindly assume because someone else wrote it down and some others agree with them.
I really don't see any difference in the way most nutjobs treat science compared/contrasted to the way religions nutjobs treat religion.
Re:You raise an interesting point here (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Here's A Tip, Folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here's A Tip, Folks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here's A Tip, Folks (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a tip, folks. The minute you see some science journalist use the word "paradigm", as in "paradigm shift" or "paradigm breaking" you can be quite certain that what follows will be neither.
Thank goodness! Relativity and Quantum Mechanics make my head hurt. With this wonderful insight you've provided I can crawl back into my Newtonian clockwork universe shell and ignore them! ;-)
More seriously. Pardigms do "shift" and get "broken". It's just that almost every journalist wants to sensationalise their news piece to sell it. That doesn't mean there aren't genuine breakthroughs. Just that you can't trust a journalist to tell you about them.
Re:Once again (Score:5, Insightful)
They are the same in the beginning (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right - religion and science are the same in one sense. They are guesses at what reality is.
The largest difference is that science acknowledges that it is a guess. A very educated guess, which yes yielded modern life as we know it. Religion tries to claim that it is the truth, and the only truth, and expects it's adherents to doggedly follow it's rules and values way beyond their useful context. To give you an example, a slashdot poster recently gave a ridiculously long opinion on whether pig meat cultivated in a lab would be kosher or not.
Now, religion in it's early days claimed to heal the sick, to make the blind see, and to allow the lame to walk again. It has never done any of these things. Science, on the other hand, has done all of these things and much more. I'll stick with the continued results of the scientific method. You can keep your bronze age mysticism.
Re:Capitalism? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not so sure about that. Endo-retro viruses might still be a major factor for more complex organisms and even chordates. I've been wondering about whether super-retro viruses that can cross-infect multiple species while carrying secondary genetic payloads would be a possible agent for punctuated equilibrium.
It's interesting that there are people with varying degrees of immunity to retro-viruses like AIDS. While AIDS is not very contagious, other retroviruses could be much more easily transmitted, so you would think that retro-viral resistance would be a very beneficial and common mutation, however it appears to be quite rare. Why? Well, it's possible that such mutations have drawbacks that are more frequently a disadvantage than the immunity advantage (as a parallel, sickle-cell and Thalassemia resistance to malaria), it also might be because susceptibility to retro viruses provides a significant evolutionary advantage in the Red Queen's race for complex organisms just as horizontal DNA exchange does for bacteria.
Re:Once again (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not quite 'blind' trust, though. It is reasonable trust, because we've seen that in the past, the methods and models those guys talked about have actually been verified. They invented electronic things that have had a profound effect on humanity. History tells us modern medicine has improved human health immensely (if you're rich enough, of course). And I (an ex-researcher) do know how the scientific method works and what its limitations are. Therefore my "belief" in science is reasonable.
The best part is that it works for you even if you don't believe in it -- so creationists can still enjoy the fruits of science. Science is better.
Re:Well duh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here's A Tip, Folks (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Traits may be inherited. Clearly traits had to arise from somewhere, either mutations, the action of the environment physically changing an organism, acquired by horizontal gene transfer, or some as yet undiscovered method.
Darwin never insisted that inheritance was the ONLY method of trait acquisition. Even he was was able to imagine backward a few million years and realize that the slight differences that were subsequently amplified had to have been acquired by some means he did not document. He often ruminated on this inability to quantify the source.
This so called new theory does no violence to Darwin's basic premise.
Re:Here's A Tip, Folks (Score:1, Insightful)
It ain't new,
It is to those of us who hadn't heard of it.
and neither is trying to make a well known phenomena sound exciting and "paradigm shifting" by announcing it to the world.
You don't have your paradigm shifted until you learn the new information. For most of us, that happens when it gets announced to the world.
Man, but I hate science journalism.
You are not the target audience.
Darwin didn;t even know DNA existed. (Score:1, Insightful)
Darwin didn;t even know DNA existed. So genes were unknown. But still he came up with his theory of evolution. This *ought* to show people that *how* DNA manages to make mutations wasn't part of the theory.
But it seems like they think that DNA making mutations differently shakes the theory.
Attacking Darwin sells issues (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems to me that one of the reasons journalism science is so bad, is that they believe (rightly or wrongly) that any article which appears to be saying "DARWIN WAS WRONG!" will sell more copies.
The article doesn't say that, obviously, but it at a cursory glance it could be perceived as that.
Re:Here's A Tip, Folks (Score:4, Insightful)
Understandable, since Dawkins seems to view evolution almost religiously, so of course any deviation from dogma would be rejected as heresy.