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

[ALS]

"take it to a REAL scientific community - Aric2000"


hahahahaha

hay that's still funny!

[f.Christian]

"take it to a REAL sausage scientific community - Aric2000"

[HalfFull]

By a broad definition I could be considered a creationist

very broad, since you deny the very words of Jesus the Creator concerning this subject...

[HalfFull]

if you deny Jesus the Creator, you deny God, by any definition. -me A number of Jews might disagree with you there.

we agree.

[Aric2000]

Well ,go ahead then.

Take your creationist theory into science, have it peer reviewed, then come back and see me.

Evoloution has been peer reviewed, it has been studied, changed, brought up to date and has yet to be disproven.

Since you are so right and evolution is so wrong, put it under the same tests that evolution has been through.

Then we will talk about your scientific theory that competes with evolution.

Go ahead, go for it.

[Aric2000]

If you are gonna quote me, then quote me, but do not misrepresent what I said.

It's dishonest, and shows that the person who posted it cares nothing about the truth.

[f.Christian]

door to door darwin witness peddling junk science tracts !

free book // tape ... the Gospel of Jesusu Christ via Darwin ... latter day scientists !

ron l darwin hubbard ... ayn darwin rand --- brave new darwin - gospel !

CLEAR of Truth -- REALITY ... liebots !

[ALS]

"...I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science...It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] and holes as sound parts." (Charles Darwin to Asa Gray, cited by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991) p. 456, 475.)

[f.Christian]

Beware of the reflective -- spiritual man -- mind !

Sausage up --- away !

[Right Wing Professor]

1. Time for you to define "creationist".

One who rejects a naturalistic origin of species.

Truth or fact is not a war of who has the most words on paper.

In the absence of an external arbiter of truth or fact, the fact that evolution is more vigorous than it has ever been in terms of the amount of research it inspires, and the fact that anti-evolutionists are almost entirely fringe figures motivated by a few fundamentalist sects of Christianity, 90% of whose output is polemic and tract rather than anything recongizable as scientific research, I think 'the most words on paper' in decent scintific journals is a fair measure; but we can also look at the quality of the papers, if you like.

No matter who is quoted, you and your inane ilk will always mislabel the quoted if they do not conform to your extremist narrow-minded pablum.

When your lot stops using ID as a Trojan horse for introducing fundamentalist Christianity into biology instruction, you'll have an argument.

You people have wonderfully displayed the antithesis of science.

I'm always being lectured by creationists about what is or isn't science. I've been doing scientific research for 25 years. You'll understand I usually take comments like yours the same way Shaq might take advice on basketball from a couch-potato.

[Junior]

The word is "too" not "to." You didn't catch the implication in the posting someone made to you about your English?

[PatrickHenry]

PLACEMARKER Oook! Oook! Plan 69-Q is in effect.

[ALS]

America's leading botanist in the mid-19th century. Darwin's strongest early supporter in the U.S., in 1857 he became only the third scientist to be told of his theory (after Hooker and Lyell). He debated L. Agassiz between 1859 and 1861 on variation and geographic distribution (see also W. Rogers). His discovery of close affinities between East Asian and North American floras was a key piece of evidence in favor of evolution. Not fully comfortable with selection, he argued that evolution was compatible with religious belief and slid towards theistic evolutionism. Author of numerous botanical textbooks.

http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~alroy/lefa/Gray.html

Career:

M.D., Fairfield College of Physicians and Surgeons of Western District of New York, 1831

Medical practice, Bridgewater, N.Y.

Teacher, Bartlett's High School, Utica, N.Y., 1832-1835

Curator, New York Lyceum of Natural History, 1835-1838(?)

Botanist, Wilkes Expedition, 1836-1838 (resigned shortly before expedition departed)

Professor of botany, University of Michigan (appointed put position never filled), 1838-1842

Professor of natural history, Harvard University, 1842-1888 (retired from teaching 1873)
Studied under:

John Torrey

Students:

Joseph Le Conte
Colleagues:

Louis Agassiz

J. Allen

H. Hagen

A. Hyatt

L. Lesquereux

Key publications:

Flora of North America (1838-1843)

Darwiniana (1876: collection of essays on evolutionary theory)

[ALS]

"1. Time for you to define "creationist".

One who rejects a naturalistic origin of species."

"a" naturalistic origin of species?
which one?

[HalfFull]

The word is "too" not "to." You didn't catch the implication in the posting someone made to you about your English?

I saw it and didn't think it was applicable to the discussion. OK ya'll got me, i used "to" instead of "too". Guess you win the To/too debate. Guess you understand now why i went the BSEE route instead of the Arts route.

However, it still doesn't change the fact you are on the wrong side of the evolution/creation debate

[f.Christian]

fC ...

science (( no change )) vs the study of science (( change )) !

dh ...

That's a silly quibble. The universe does whatever it damn well pleases, and hasn't the slightest demonstrated notion of what a law is to constrain it. Insofar as what is demonstrable, natural laws are human inventions to help us think more effectively about nature. The claim that they are objectively existing things in and of themselves, is unproven and probably unprovable--as is likewise the claim that there is such a thing as "science" which exists independently of "the study of science".

1,398 posted on 05/14/2003 10:36 PM PDT by donh (u)

fC ...

... evolution (( link )) --- liquid wrench --- tautology !

Main Entry: tau·tol·o·gous
Pronunciation: to-'tä-l&-g&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: Greek tautologos, from taut- + legein to say -- more at LEGEND
Date: 1714
1 : involving or containing rhetorical tautology : REDUNDANT
2 : true by virtue of its logical form alone - tau·tol·o·gous·ly adverb

"more at LEGEND"

[balrog666]

Idiots-on-parade placemarker. Acknowledged! Oook Oook! Oh, and oooook!

[Junior]

It's "y'all" not "ya'll." [|;^)>

[ALS]

interesting rebuttal letter from a student re:evolunacy


Professor Linder,
I was reading ahead to the assignments due this week in Con. Law and thought I would write a bit of a “response” regarding the content on Wednesday’s assignment and its links. I respect your opinion regarding the evolution-creation matter, however I do disagree. Student Prerogative, if you will. Though I do not claim to be an expert scientist, I believe that the theory of evolution has many logical and scientific flaws at its very core. I especially disagree with the notion that there are no “fist rate” biologist or scientists who do not conform to evolution theory. On the contrary, many reputable scientists, including biologists, believe that only an intelligent creator could have created an intelligent universe. I don’t know how you define “first rate” here. From people I have spoken with previously, it seems that “second-rate” scientist is one who disagrees with the theory of evolution. Seems like this is assuming the very point that they are trying to prove, no?
Although the quality of books written by those who do not believe in evolution varies significantly, some of the books below are unarguably solid, well researched and scientifically accurate. In fact, some of them are written not by creationists but by evolutionists and ex-evolutionists who question evolution’s merits after having been staunch evolutionists themselves.

Darwin's Black Box., Dr. Michael J. Behe
Explores one of the most vexing problems in biology: the origin of the complexity that permeates all of life. Behe, a professor in biochemistry who is not a Biblical creationist, comes to the conclusion that at a biochemical level, scientists have no option but to believe in intelligent design. Dr. Behe is a highly respected biochemist from Lehigh University.
http://www.arn.org/behe/behehome.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rossuk/Behe.htm
http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Einbios/behe.html
http://atheism.org/library/modern/science/creationism/behe.html (interesting….atheism.org. I wonder how unbiased they are….)

Darwin on Trial, Phillip E. Johnson.
Phillip Johnson is a law professor at the University of California- at Berkeley. He is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Chicago. In his book, he takes Darwinism and puts it to logical and scientific tests. He talks about the evolutionists’ flaws regarding the rules of Science, the fossil problem, the molecular evidence, the problem with pre-biological evolution, the mutation problem and many others.

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/johnson.shtml

What is Creation Science? Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker
Scientifically accurate treatment of the scientific evidence for supernatural creation without any Biblical or religious arguments. Foreword by Dr. Dean B. Kenyon, Professor of Biology at San Francisco State University and former prominent evolutionist.

Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Dr. Michael Denton
This book by a non-creationist is hard-hitting, factual, and objective. It does not argue in favor of Creation, but is a clear, balanced, responsible, and scientifically accurate account of the ever-growing crisis in evolutionary circles.
Bones of Contention, Marvin Lubenow Thorough examination of all the supposed pre-human fossils that has been published, with thorough refutation of all evolutionary inferences that have been drawn from them. Lubenow is both a scientist and a theologian.
Many other thinkers in the fields of mathematics, astrophysics, geology and other sciences have written scientifically accurate articles and publications in reputable journals. I would be glad to send you hundreds of links and names of these men and women.

Professor Prerogative-Student Prerogative (from a humble 1L)

1. To call evolution a "theory" says nothing about its ability to accurately explain facts observed in the world. Gravitation is a theory. The sun-centered solar system of Copernicus and Galileo is a theory.
Stephen Jay Gould popularized this line of reasoning and analogy in his article “Evolution as Facts and Theory.” Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan have also gone to great lengths to say that evolution is “fact” and not theory. The analogy between gravity and evolution seems flawed. We observe directly that objects fall when dropped. We do not observe a common ancestor for modern apes and humans. Evolution is a theory that cannot be reproduced and observed, as is normally required by scientific methods of analysis. Is this not the basic tenant of science? It also flies in the face of the second law of thermodynamics. That is, if things tend to migrate towards disorder, how can increasing complex life forms ‘evolve’? Furthermore, Darwin himself called evolution simply a “theory.” Why should we argue with him?

2. Evolution is the central theory of biology. It is a powerful tool for explaining the presence of millions of fossils and other observations about the origin of life forms.
However, evolution has yet to be proven. If it is a tool, then should we still not call it a theory? No evidence has ever been found for macroevolution. While many fossils exist, no transitional life forms have been found in the fossil record-ever. If evolution were true there would be Millions, if not billions, of transitional life forms. The fact is that none exist outside of microevolution. The supposed “links” have all been proven to be false, including “Nebraska Man,” and “Lucy.” These two are only referring to the ape-human evolution, not to mention the endless missing links between vertebrates and invertebrates, impossible odds in organization of DNA, or life in the very first cause…was there oxygen in the atmosphere? If not, evolution is shot from the beginning.

3. Evolution is not considered to be inconsistent with the religious beliefs of most Christians or Jews. Most mainline Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church, and many other religious faiths accept the teaching of evolution.
This doesn’t prove anything either way. You have do some pretty fancy footwork to justify day-age theories, gap theories, theistic evolution and some of the others “systems” that have been adopted by scholars from these faiths.

4. There is not a single first-rate biologist in the United States who does not believe that life on earth has developed through the process of evolution, starting with single-cell organisms.
Once again, it depends on how “first rate” is defined. If first rate means teaching at a big name school and being respected in their field, then these guys are not “first rate.”? Where is the cutoff point? http://www.icr.org/abouticr/faculty.htm. They are all creationist. Many more out there. Seems like evolutionists like to build straw men and knock them down by insulting and/or trying to discredit anyone who may remotely disagree with them. Seems like they are the ones giving off the same type of intolerance they once received and decried from those who didn’t agree with evolution. Quite a role reversal here. Is anyone who does not teach at Harvard, Yale or Stanford a “second rate” professor?. I would hope not. This neither proves nor disproves that their theories are right or wrong.

6. It took over 200 years, but eventually the Catholic Church accepted the scientific evidence that the earth revolved around the sun. Eventually, most Fundamentalists will come to accept the theory of evolution as well--whether in 20 years or in 200 is hard to say. But it will happen. Facts are stubborn things.
The Catholic Church was not alone in its initial rejection of Copernicus' theories. Most of the “secular” people of his day wanted nothing to do with his theories either! “Fundamentalists” such as Pascal, Newton and many others throughout the ages were not only some of the greatest scientific minds in history but also deeply religious individuals. It’s a bit unfair to characterize those who are “fundamentalists” as being closed minded and unthinking obscurantises. Granted, there may be some yahoos out there, but there are also many respected thinkers, scientists and educators who do not buy the evolution line and have logical well-reasoned arguments and data to support their views.

As to facts being stubborn things, I agree! So many scientific, statistical, and logical facts are stacked against evolutionary theory that it may take more faith to believe in it than it does to believe in special design

For what its worth, I think that creation (with no specific religious bent) and evolution should be taught equally at the schools. Students have brains and if they really care to find out more, they can make up their own mind without having either theory shoved down their throat at school. I grew up in a system where evolution was forced down my throat until high school. After reading some of the books above, I’m just simply not convinced that evolutionary theory is “fact” by any stretch of the imagination.

My purpose in sending you this email is by no means to be contentious. I’m sure you’ve researched the issue extensively and an email from a 1L is probably not going to change your views. I believe the books above at least give a fair and reasoned perspective from thinking individuals who may disagree with you and have very solid reasons to do so.

Respectfully,
Camilo Ruan

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/evolutresponse.html

[Aric2000]

Engineering is a great career, and it is an excellent degree by the way... You just need to BROADEN your outlook a bit. I work with engineers every day, and some, not all, are about as narrow minded as you can get. I call it tunnel vision, they get something in their head, and NOTHING will take them from it. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes it's not so good.

And what side would that be?

If we went with a majority rule, we would be on the correct side, if we went with science rules, we would be on the correct side, so which, in your definition is the correct side of this argument?

Literal creationists are getting to be a minority in the Christian sects, and the numbers grow smaller by the day,as the sophistication of the "believers" grows.