How All Species Are Related Grows More Precise, Complex [Evolution]

Wall Street Journal (subscription required) ^ | 13 June 2002 | Sharon Begley

[PatrickHenry]

Family resemblance can indeed be elusive, or we wouldn't have "check the mailman" jokes. Scientists who try to infer who's related to whom among all creatures past and present can therefore be forgiven for taking 150 years to figure out this one: slime molds, mushrooms and other fungi are more closely related to you, me and other animals than they are to plants.

[gore3000]

LOL.

LOL is not a refutation of anything. As usual you pull out the conclusions from carefully reasoned and substantiated posts and disregard all the evidence given. You may hold your opinions very highly, but they are just your opinions and when all you can do is insult the statements of others instead of refuting what is being said you show quite well that it is your opinion which is wrong, not that of the one you are attacking.

[gore3000]

Evolution says essentially that the variation in each species is the result of natural selection. -me in Bye Bye Darwin-

LOL.

What an unintelligent comment. The rest of the paragraph says:

Evolution says essentially that the variation in each species is the result of natural selection. Beneficial traits in individuals are spread throughout the species by interbreeding. Those individuals who can make better use of the limited resources of their environment will reproduce more successfully and have more offspring. Thus the traits that enhance the survival of the species and its flourishing will be passed on to succeeding generations, those traits which are detrimental will not. In this manner, which Darwin called natural selection or the survival of the fittest, species overcome their environment in the struggle for life. In addition, according to Darwin, by mounting numerous small changes one upon another, a species, not only adapts to the environment, but it remakes itself with enhanced capabilities which originally were not part of the species and which after enough changes have occurred turn it into a new species.

Evolution does not say that? Gee, I guess evolutionists have been lying about what their own theory says for 150 years!

[gore3000]

From g3K's Nobel Prize acceptance speech: New genes cannot be created from old genes.

... And if you don't agree with me, it's because evil dumb teachers educated you stupid.

If my statement were wrong, you should be able to give hundreds if not thousands if not millions of examples from the millions of species in existence where a totally new gene has been seen to have been created from an old gene. However, in spite of tens of billions spent on biological research every year for many decades in the US and the rest of the world not a single new gene has ever been observed to arise in the numerous experiments which have been made.

[VadeRetro]

A Yahoo! on "gene duplication" produced this list of papers as its first hit (of about 13,900).

[PatrickHenry]

This is an interesting graphic. Too big to post in the thread, but it's worth a look: The Creation-Evolution Continuum.

It comes from this site, which is also interesting: Is Evolution a Belief or a Science?

[forsnax5]

You do know what the tastiest part of a pine tree is.

Got lots of 'em in our pine trees. Wife won't approve of eatin' 'em, though...

[gore3000]

A Yahoo! on "gene duplication" produced this list of papers as its first hit (of about 13,900).

Kindly show ONE (1) example in which this has been OBSERVED. Just one. All the links - all 13,900 of them are to evolutionist verbiage which ASSUME that it occurs. So you have not disproven my statement. All you have shown is that evolutionists are quick to assume that evolutionist assumptions are correct without any experimental evidence for their ASSUMPTIONS.

[js1138]

New genes cannot be created from old genes.

This is not evidence. It is contrary to evidence. You are asserting that mutations cannot occur, that duplications cannot occur; in short, you are saying that the genome cannot change. I suppose you are also saying that genetic engineering cannot happen and that radiation cannot change germ cells. All of this is contrary to nearly a hundred years of biology.

[js1138]

I assume there is such a thing as a baby pigeon, but I've never seen one.

Perhaps you can explain genetic variation in a bacteria colony that starts with a single cell.

[forsnax5]

Some current thinking on gene duplication in vertebrates:

(This is an excerpt, the full article is here).

"There has been a lot of debate about whether there were two complete polyploid events at the base of the vertebrate lineages. The main problem is that vertebrate genomes are so scrambled after 500 million years, that it is very difficult to find the signature of such an event," explains Michael Lynch, a professor of biology at Indiana University, Bloomington. With accumulating sequence data from gene families, a picture is emerging of a lone, complete one-time doubling at the dawn of vertebrate life, followed by a continual and ongoing turnover of about 5-10% of the genome that began in earnest an estimated 30-50 million years ago. Short DNA sequences reinvent themselves, duplicating and sometimes diverging in function and dispersing among the chromosomes, so that the genome is a dynamic, ever-changing entity.

[Aric2000]

But it's all that needs to be said about your silly assertions.

Give it up and go find a life G3K, if you knew a thing about science, instead of being frightened that it might somehow destroy your faith, you might actually get a clue.

I trust your posts as much as I trust Madame velma down the street to foretell my future.

You will live a long life and win a million dollars, well, she has 2 really good guesses, but where she gets her information, who KNOWS!!

Go take a science class at a secular university and we'll talk, but you are so clueless that NOTHING more needs to be said to you. SO go get a life.

You are of course, from now on, on virtual ignore.

Good bye G3K......

LOL

[js1138]

Evolution does not say that?

It's not a particulary good xposition of evolution. For one thing, selection is not the cause of variation. For another thing, you phrase things as if organisms intended to adapt and improve. Science writing for laymen may phre things this way, but you cannot attack science based on the sloppy writing of journalists. Nor can you attack science based on thoretical writings from 150 years ago. Knowledge get more specific and more detailed with time, and the phrasing of theory becomes more detailed as well.

The phrase "survival of the fittest" is not a scientific description of what happens, and never has been. What happens is differential reproductive success.

[PatrickHenry]

You are of course, from now on, on virtual ignore. Good bye G3K......

You've finally come to your senses. Now if only some of the others would see the light.

[_Jim]

Can you identify that exact number of species that have been deigned to be intelligently created?

[balrog666]

Interesting site.

[Junior]

A "snakes have genes for legs" placemarker (now, how do the creationists explain that?).

[PatrickHenry]

A "snakes have genes for legs" placemarker (now, how do the creationists explain that?).

Many ways. Most often by saying: (1) you're a liar; (2) you're a slimer; (3) you're a sliming liar; (4) you're Christian bashing; (5) you're a disruptor; (6) you're trying to get the thread pulled; (7) you have no evidence; (8) your evidence is all fake, just like Piltdown Man; (9) you're a God-hating atheist; (10) Darwin was a closet queen, a racist, and the inspiration for Hitler; (11) you're a materialist, neo-Darwinist cultist; (12) you're an evo-thug; (13) I'm hitting the abuse button on you.

I've probably missed a few, but those are most of the standard rebuttals.

[f.Christian]

****** Now you've done it. fchristian will be here soon. ******

EvoEvolution

Lying w/o shame !

ABIOGENESIS

That slow process by which living organisms were spontaneously generated from non-living matter. This scientific fact should not be confused with the old discredited myth of spontaneous generation by which it was once foolishly believed that living organisms arose from non-living matter. (see Law of Biogenesis).

A.C.L.U.

An organization that zealously protects our American civil liberties by preventing students in public schools from considering scientific evidence that is either consistent with creation or critical of evolution.

BIG BANG

The mechanism, or at least the noise, by which all matter and energy came into existence billions of years ago.

BIOLOGY

The branch of the exact sciences which is exclusively concerned with the evolution of living organisms by means of random mutations and natural selection.

DROSOPHILA

The "guinea pig" of the evolutionist to which we all owe a debt of gratitude for our understanding of the role of mutations in evolution. Trillions of generations of these rapidly breeding little flies have had their wings crumpled and their eyes damaged by strong mutagenic agents to provide us with a genetic insight into how man evolved from the prehominid brutes in a few thousand generations.

EVOLUTION

A truly perfect scientific theory which explaims in detail how everything in the universe came into being -- slowly. The theory of evolutions is so perfect and flexible in its ability to explain virtually all observable phemomena or opinions that it would be impossible to even conceive of an experiment capable of disproving it. (see Law).

GEOLOGIC COLUMN

A precise hierarchy of fossilized animals and plants of known age found in successive layers of stratified rock with the simplest and oldest at the bottom and the most highly evolved, i.e., most recent, at the top. Uninterrupted columns of this type may be found in any book of geology, paleontology or evolution. Bits and pieces of the column may even be found in the stratified rocks of the earth, but since these layers are often out of correct order and very incomplete, one should study the geologic column in books, not nature.

HOPEFUL MONSTER THEORY

A concept first introduced out of necessity by the geneticist, Richard Goldschmidt, which states that evolution occurs by sudden and large changes in the offspring of a species resulting in radically different but well adapted organisms, i.e. "hopeful monsters." After being widely discredited for many years this idea is being reintroduced, out of necessity, as a serious theory. The great leaps forward implicit in this theory entirely account for the absence of the "missing links." (See Punctuated Equilibrium)

INDEX FOSSILS

Fossils of animals whose ages are precisely known from the age of the rocks in which they are found, thus, serving as a means for accurately dating the rocks in which they are found as well as the age of any other fossils that may be contained therein.

LAW

In science, a statement of fact about a sequence or phenomenon that has been invariably observed to occur under known conditions such as, for example, the theory of evolution. (see Evolution).

LAW OF BIOGENESIS

Simply states the obvious...that all life comes from pre-existing life. This law, which was confirmed by Redi and Pasteur, permanently laid to rest the ludicrous idea of the ignorant ancients that living organisms could spring from inanimate matter. It should be emphasized that this law in no way precludes the slow origin of living organisms from inanimate matter through the process of evolution - after all, we are here, aren't we? (see Abiogenesis).

LIFE

The only term in this dictionary that defies definition since it has been said that "the division of matter into living and nonliving is perhaps an arbitrary one. It is a convenient method for distinguishing, for instance, a man from a rock." (quoted verbatim from The Origins of Life, by Cyril Ponnamperuma, 1962, H. P. Dutton, New York, p. 36).

MICROSPHERES

Primitive cells which have been artificially synthesized from simple laboratory reagents. As the name implies, the principal similarity between microspheres and living cells is that both are small and sort of round.

MISSING LINKS

An inconceivably vast assemblage of plants and animals which are intermediate in their evolutionary development between all of the discrete kinds of plants and animals one sees either alive or in the fossil record. Unfortunately as the name implies they are missing.

MUTATIONS

A change in the genetic material (DNA) of the cell induced by hazardous chemicals or radiation which in addition to killing or maiming organisms will, given enough time and enough mutations, inexorably lead some organisms on to an ever more successful and adaptive life.

NATURAL SELECTION

That miraculous process by which incredibly complex and useful structures, such as the eye or brain, are culled out from a vast array of random and purposeless mutations. In the distant past this marvelous natural artificer has produced the whole scope of existence from molecules to man but today it appears to be limiting its activities to such mundane matters as controlling the relative numbers of white and black moths in England.

NEO-DARWINIAN EVOLUTION

An embellishment of the old Darwinian theory of evolution, it states that random changes (mutations) in the genome of an organism will be selected for, and thus contribute to the evolution of the new species, only if they ultimately lead to a greater number of offspring. Thus, an ever-increasing rate of reproduction entirely accounts for the evolution from bacteria to man.

ONTOGENY RECAPITULATES PHYLOGENY

A law first discovered by Ernst Haeckel which if pronounced correctly and with conviction, impresses laymen and students of science in the elementary grades. Simply stated, and thus less convincingly, it means that the embryos of all animals bother to provide a historical review of many stages of their evolution during their embryological development. Although this type of reminiscing is touching and is taught in almost every general science and biology text book, it is no longer accepted by scientists or even evolutionists.

PHYLOGENETIC TREE

A tree that grows mainly in textbooks of biology and which has a variety of both contemporary and fossil animals perched on the tips of its branches. This tree clearly shows how all of these animals branched off from common ancestors a long time ago. For some reason the common ancestors are never shown sitting in the crotches of the tree. Plants presumably grow on different trees which are rather rare.

PILTDOWN MAN

Once known by all true scholars of human evolution to be an ancient ancestor of man. This true "ape man" had the jaw of a modern ape and the skull of a modern man. Today this ape-man is not so well known among true scholars of evolution.

PRIMITIVE

Old, inferior, poorly adapted, less evolved, shoddy, bungling.

PROOF

The assimilation of data in such a way that the desired conclusion seems to be the most plausible hypothesis.

PROTOZOA

As the name implies, these are known to be the first true animals on earth. If these primitive organisms had continued to adapt to their changing environment they might still be with us today.

PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM

An ad hoc hypothesis or alibi that claims the reason there are no known transitional forms in the fossil record is because evolutionary changes occur so quickly and the reason we can't see evolutionary changes in the laboratory is because they occur so slowly. (see Hopeful Monster Theory).

RADIOCARBON DATING

A remarkably precise method of actually measuring the age of any carbon-containing sample. Except for certain spurious (young) dates, radiocarbon, like other methods involving the decay of radionuclides will, given several absolutely safe assumptions, invariably indicate a ripe old age for any specimen consistent with a slow process of evolution.

SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

One of the most fundamental laws of science which essentially states that nothing can increase in order, complexity, or information but rather everything form the universe to the one-horse shay will in time fall apart (not assemble). We may be sure, however, that the mind-boggling increase in order, complexity and information accomplished by the evolution of chemicals to man in no way violates this law or it wouldn't have happened.

SELECTIVE PRESSURE

That natural and highly selective pressure that actually forces particularly useful structures such as brains, eyes, legs, wings and long necks on giraffes to evolve by random mutations. Unnecessary structures such as eyelids on your navel fail to evolve by chance because there is no selective pressure for this.

SPECULATION

The single most powerful tool in the hands of the evolutionists.

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

The most important contribution of Darwin to biological thought which states that only those organisms which are fit survive, or in other words, survival is the result of being fit. By this kind of logic it can also be proven that loss of vision is a principal cause of blindness.

THEISTIC EVOLUTION

The belief that the evolutionary account of origins (where everything ascends from a very imperfect state to a more nearly perfect state) and the Biblical account of origins (where everything descends from a perfect state to a very imperfect state) are both true.

TIME

That miracle ingredient which in sufficient quantity can give scientific credibility to any hypothesis no matter how improbable. It is a well- known axiom of science for example, that given enough time virtually anything is possible - indeed you might even say it has to happen.

TREE

That which only evolution can make. (see Phylogenetic Tree).

VESTIGIAL ORGANS

Organs or other body parts, left over from evolutionary ancestors, which are no longer used or needed by an organism that has become more highly evolved by abandoning organs and getting simpler. Seventy years ago man had nearly one hundred vestigial organs such as the parathyroid, tonsils, coccyx, etc., but today he has very few vestigial organs because a good use has been discovered for most of these organs.

XERDEMA PIGMENTOSA

A disease of man in which certain enzymes which normally repair mutations of DNA fail to do so resulting in malignant tumors of the skin which are often fatal. Since it is well known that mutations were essential for the evolution of man from primitive cells, we must assume that too much of even a good thing like mutations is bad for us.


390 posted on 06/11/2003 12:49 AM PDT by razorbak

[PatrickHenry]

This identical and very long post has been spammed into a few threads today. Not only this one, at post 78, but also HERE, HERE, and HERE. It's getting tiresome.

[f.Christian]

Virtual ignore ... isn't very virtual !