Genetic Changes In Mice 'Question Evolution Speed'

Ananova ^ | 5-21-2003

[blam]

Genetic changes in mice 'question evolution speed'

A species of mouse has evolved dramatically in just 150 years, showing genetic change can occur much faster than was thought possible.

The discovery was made by accident by two American biologists studying the genetic make-up of a common wild mouse in Chicago.

Dr Dennis Nyberg and Dr Oliver Pergams, both from the University of Illinois at Chicago, analysed DNA samples from 56 museum specimens of the white-footed mouse dating back to 1855, and 52 wild mice captured from local forests and parks.

They found startling genetic differences between the 19th century and modern mice.

Only one of the present-day mice had DNA that matched that of mice collected before 1950.

While fast evolutionary change has been seen in fruit flies, such rapid evolution in a mammal has not been reported before.

The scientists, whose findings appear in the journal Nature, believe humans may have been partly responsible for the "new" mice.

"Settlers may have brought in mice with the favourable gene that were able to out-compete mice with the native variant," said Dr Pergams.

Story filed: 18:18 Wednesday 21st May 2003

[gore3000]

Pretty much the same thing could be said of a light bulb dropped onto a tile floor.

Nope. An organism one minute after death still has all the parts in place and in the same order as a minute before. Nice try though.

BTW: there is one part of my statement all evolutionists are avoiding: how can you tell if a seed is alive or dead (ie not able to produce a living thing) - without actually planting it in the way it requires to be planted?

[Aric2000]

That is a lot of perhaps's in one post!can you all say DUH?

ALL science starts with "perhaps" there G3K, then that hypothesis is tested to see if the perhaps becomes, yeah, maybe, and then, yep, that's most likely what happened.

Come on G3K, get a clue...

[gore3000]

Come on G3K, even you will admit that Microevolution happens

No, I do not. First of all the two examples given by evolutionists - the moths and the finches are not and have never been evidence of microevolution. Second of all there is no evidence of any mutations which in any way have made an organism more viable. Thirdly, all species have a large genetic pool, this is what makes them last. When one somehow decreases the size of this genetic pool by inbreeding, by isolation, or by other means, the species becomes less viable and less able to withstand the environmental changes (which are more than weather, but include competition with other species) than if the genetic pool had not been split up. Fourthly, this large genetic pool is what allows species to adapt without mutation to environmental changes. Fifthly, all species have the ability to themselves, without mutation, marshall forth from their inner being forces which enable them to adapt and survive. One excellent example of this is our ability to fight diseases.

[gore3000]

ALL science starts with "perhaps"

No, science starts when evidence for a hypothesis is confirmed, until then it is all blather, not science.

[plusone]

Back to the mosquito...

[Dimensio]

You are a self-admitted atheist so my saying you are one is correct.

I never claimed that you were wrong in calling me an atheist. I can't imagine any intelligent person construing my words as conveying such a meaning. I can't imagine any honest person accusing me of making such a statement.

Which is it, gore3000? Are you stupid, or just a liar?

[plusone]

There is some evidence that mermory can be passed along, genetically. Walruses on some desolate island at first were not afraid of people, having never seen them. The sailors (Back in the 1700's) used this to their advantage and killed the animals for food. The walruses learnt to not trust people. The next time people landed there, it was many 'walrus-generations' later. And the animals still feared man, though the island had not been visited in a long time and the older walruses from the original landings had died off. Can't remember the name of the place, it was from saome documentary...

[Dimensio]

Yes, by trying as strongly as you have been throughout this thread to divorce evolution from abiogenesis you are implicitly admitting that abiogenesis can in no way be true.

Right, because it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that evolution simply does not address abiogenesis. How convenient for you to assume your conclusion, thus you can make up any reason when someone tries to point out that your initial assumptions are false.

That you are forced to denigrate it in order to try to save something of your atheistic/materialistic beliefs (evolution) shows quite well that you know that abiogenesis is utter nonsense

How have I tried to denigrate abiogenesis? Do I denigrate gravity by not including an explanation for it in the theory of evolution either? Once again, you're lying about my position. Business as usual for you, though.

[Dimensio]

Not that I'm claiming sufficient background nor research credentials to put this forth as a full-fledged hypothesis, but could the walrus observation not also be evidence that perhaps these animals have some means of long-term memory and meaningful communication abilities that we've yet to decipher?

[plusone]

Millions of micro-evolutions? Then answer my post about the non-evolution of the mosquito... At least 100 million years, and from mosquiots trapped in fossil amber, that bug hasn't changed much. Considering that m/s live in the arctic, there is plenty of time (minimusm 500 million generations) for the arctic m/s to 'evolve' some type of protective coeating (fur?) to keep them active longer during the short warm season. Surely that would be an enormous survival-of-the-fittest advantage over their 'bald' cousins? Yet nothing, after all that time and a half billion tries at the evolutionary crapshoot. Why? If the three legs of evolution; Time, Random Chance, and Natural Selection couldn't refashion the mosquito, how did it transform an ocean filled with bacteria into all the life that has ever existed? How can you turn a germ into a Brontosaur, when other creatures (with the same three elements of evolution at work) were left alone? Mosquitos, turtles, crocodiles, lung fish etc?

[plusone]

Sure. That is another explantion. On a different note, there were some researchers, maybe fifteen years ago, that did a 'memory' experiment. They put a killed virus into water, then kept diluting the water till there was no statistical possibility that the virus could be present. Only water could remain. They then put this water into a dish with white blood cells, and the cells attacked the water as if it were the invading virus. Their conclusion was that water had a memory. Pretty weird stuff...

[Right Wing Professor]

Who gives a darn. You cannot answer my question so you try to distract and confuse the matter. Answer my question, then we will talk.

You apparently have mistaken me for someone you can bullyrag. Apart from your other deficiencies, you're a poor learner.

Monarchs, as a rule, do not behave as you claim. Monarchs in Hawaii don't migrate at all. I don't know why monarchs in the US and Canada do so, but I suspect it could be explained by a couple of simple taxes - towards sunlight, keyed by day length, and then later by chemical cues. To say these simple tropisms can't be genetically encoded is asinine - even bacteria show phototaxis and chemotaxis.

But even so, you do realise you're arguing not just against evolution here, but against the thesis that the biology of simple invertebrates can b explained by scientific means?

[Aric2000]

No, I do not. First of all the two examples given by evolutionists Is he REALLY this clueless?

I see, so Bacteria do NOT become resistant to antibiotics, mosquitos do NOT become resistant to DDT, OK.....

I bet a LOT of biologists are really, really confused without that G3K observation. Better let them in on that observation G3K, wouldn't want the REAL scientific community confused on the fact that G3K states that there is NO such thing as Microevolution, so there must not be.

[f.Christian]

Hatcheries weren't able to replace lost salmon runs.

[Aric2000]

Why is that so hard for you to deal with?

A predator becomes a part of the environment, so the feed species, the one the predator eats, evolves some defense, those that survive are obviously better able to cope with this new predator, so they survive and reproduce.

Well, Mosquitos have no REAL predators, because they are so predigious, in other words hundreds if not thousands from a mated pair, so why should they need to change, the changes may be there, but without a reason to kill of those that don't have that mutation, it really doesn't have an effect, now toss in a very deadly predator, DDT, all of a sudden, survival of the fittest has a whole new meaning.

thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years there was no pressure to bring those mutations to the forefront, now DDT KILLS OFF ALL THOSE without the mutation to survive it, and now all of sudden we have a load of mosquitos that are resistant to DDT.

No threat, no change, new threat, new change.

Easy Easy stuff.

That's a very basic example, but it is evolution in process.

[Right Wing Professor]

In fact, here are a couple of links on monarch migration. Phototaxis seems to be a primary mechanism

http://www.exn.ca/Stories/1997/05/01/03.asp

This in particular I liked: did I say a phototaxis triggered by day length? Hot damn!

Our ... newly developed flight simulator for monarch butterflies allows migratory insects to fly actively for up to several hours in any horizontal direction while their flight direction can be continuously recorded. From these data, long segments of virtual migratory flight paths of tethered flying monarch butterflies were reconstructed. By advancing or retarding the butterflies' circadian clocks, we have shown that they possess a time-compensated sun compass. Control monarchs on local time fly approximately southwest, those 6-h time-advanced fly southeast, and 6-h time-delayed butterflies fly in northwesterly directions.

http://www.mpi-seewiesen.mpg.de/~knauer/coll/mourit.html

[Right Wing Professor]

I see, so Bacteria do NOT become resistant to antibiotics, mosquitos do NOT become resistant to DDT, OK.....

Some of them will argue what you wrote, some will argue this is 'microevolution' and not 'macroevolution', but most of them will switch back and forward between the two as is most convenient.

[Aric2000]

Only because they are unwilling to allow the wild fish to mate with the hatcherie fish.

If hatcherie fish were allowed to mate with the wild fish, those runs would come back.

Very easy, you take the hatcherie eggs, put them in the wild fish spawning ground, and I'll be darned, a few years later, hundreds of fish come back and lay their eggs there.

What a bizarre concept.

Man's intervention is causing the problem, take man's intervention out, and the problem will be solved.

[Right Wing Professor]

Hatcheries weren't able to replace lost salmon runs.

I understand (I may be wrong) that salmon learn the taste of the water in which they're spawned. Monarchs don't learn; the butterfies that go north are not the butterflies that come back south.

[ALS]

"Not that I'm claiming sufficient background nor research credentials to put this forth as a full-fledged hypothesis, but could the walrus observation not also be evidence that perhaps these animals have some means of long-term memory and meaningful communication abilities that we've yet to decipher?"