Posted on 02/09/2005 7:55:00 PM PST by bondserv
Still, some critics claim that science by definition can't accept design, while others argue that science should keep looking for another explanation in case one is out there. But we can't settle questions about reality with definitions, nor does it seem useful to search relentlessly for a non-design explanation of Mount Rushmore. Besides, whatever special restrictions scientists adopt for themselves don't bind the public, which polls show, overwhelmingly, and sensibly, thinks that life was designed. And so do many scientists who see roles for both the messiness of evolution and the elegance of design.
(Excerpt) Read more at discovery.org ...
You're missing the point entirely.
If we make life from simple molecules it still means life was MADE, not that it happend by chance some millions of years ago.
The arguement is not if man can create (design) life. It's entirely possible IMO.
The question here is "Does life REQUIRE design?" My answer is "yes"
You seem to be caught up in "can it be done in a lab?"
I'm willing to bet someday it will. That still means it needed to be placed into a specific environment (absent of life) and the buildning blocks for life had to be put together in the right order, and then "sparked" into living.
This (again and again and again) means life would STILL REQUIRE DESIGN.
"Oops I missed this...You cheated. If life was created in a lab. Then you'll just say it proves it is by design because humans made life.
The only other option is observation of a primitive world over millions of years. "
Cheated nothing. Provide the amino acids, place it in an environment rich in vital nutrients (and absent of life) and let it happen.
If amino acids can jump into life, it won't take millions of years. The millions of years comes from the natural creation of said acids (can be reproduced in a lab in a few hours) and the evolution. The jump from "non-life" to "life" should only take as long as it takes for the amino acids to line up and act in unison.
I can no more prove His existence than you can disprove His existence. But He is more real to me than my wife and 2 kids.
I had a woman visit my apartment shortly after 911 and she told me that she and her boyfriend were "looking into Islam." That got me thinking about the relationship between love and hate and creation and destruction.
Love creates and hate destroys. The Bible clearly describes God as a God of love and creativity. Look around you; isn't what you see what you would expect if God exists?
Every day I have to teach my children "to be good." Why is that? Because being bad is a natuarally occuring byproduct of sin. And somehow, I don't know how and I can't say that it makes sense, we, all of us, have inherited this sin nature.
If there were anything we could do to break free from the grip that sin has on us it wouldn't have been necessary for God to send His Son to die on the cross.
That answer comes after your last breath, or not. Big gamble though.
The Failure of Empiricism
by Chuck Missler
Epistemology is the study of knowledge, its scope and limits. As taught within the field of philosophy, it tends to be simply a massaging of verbal definitions, somewhat devoid of any practical tools and suggestions. What makes it significant - in fact, urgent - to us is that Jesus repeatedly gave us the command, "Do not be deceived."1 Yet, how do we do that? What are our tools, and their limits?
Even Pontius Pilate cynically asked (perhaps only rhetorically), "What is truth?"
For most of man's history, the main issue in epistemology was reasoning versus sense perception in acquiring knowledge. For the rationalists - of whom the French philosopher René Descartes, the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz were the leaders - the main source and final test of knowledge was deductive reasoning based on self-evident principles, or axioms.
For the empiricists - beginning with the English philosophers Francis Bacon and John Locke - the main source and final test of knowledge was sense perception.
With rise of modern science, empirical verification has become the primary handmaiden of what masquerades as "scientific truth."
[Ed note: As I was preparing for this month's article, I ran across one we ran last February, which fit this month's subject perfectly. I couldn't resist sharing some sections with you again...]
* * *
Empirical Failures
The current high priests of paganism we call "scientists" actually have a rather dismal track record in their pursuit of "truth." The history of science is littered with the debris of discarded relics of what was once regarded as scientific "truth."
The Phlogiston Theory once held that every combustible substance is a compound of "phlogiston" and the phenomena of combustion was regarded as the liberation of phlogiston, with other constituents left as a residue. The Phlogiston Theory thus offered a general explanation of the chemical processes of oxidation (the "liberation of phlogiston") and reduction (the "combination with phlogiston"). This 18th century chemistry was ultimately disproved by Lavoisier.2
Aether was regarded as the element that formed the material of the heavenly spheres and bodies. This was ostensibly disproved by the famed Michelson-Morley experiment.3
The Nebular Hypothesis, the theory that the planets were formed by emanations from the sun, was first formulated by the occultist Swedenborg,4 endorsed by Laplace,5 and promoted by Kant.6 Even though it has since been shredded by the mathematics of orbital mechanics, it is still commonly taught today in astronomy classes.
Paleontology deserves no defense at all as its history is littered with deliberate frauds in support of evolutionary conjectures,7 and is further indicted by embarrassing cover-ups of the existence of ancient giants8 and the like.
Even physics, the premier of our "hard" sciences, has had its dismal episodes. The velocity of light was held to be infinite in the days of Descartes. Olaf Roemer demonstrated its finite velocity experimentally, but even this was subsequently denied by scientists for 50 years until it was eventually confirmed by Bradley. Furthermore, the velocity of light has been tenaciously regarded as constant, despite the observations by Barry Setterfield and Trevor Norman over the past several decades. Their dismissal and abuse by classical physicists continues despite the recent vindication of their insights in numerous articles in recognized professional journals.
As the first direct quotation of God in the Bible, light continues to puzzle the physicists. Is light a wave phenomenon or a stream of particles? The ostensibly schizophrenic nature of light has been the subject of much confusion. 1906, J. J. Thomson received the Nobel Prize for proving that photons are a stream of particles. In 1937 he saw his son awarded the Nobel Prize for proving that photons were, in fact, waves. In turns out that both the father and the son were correct. Furthermore, the experimental validation of the Bell Inequality established that photons exhibit a property known as "non-locality": all photons are apparently immediately connected to all other photons in the universe!9
Perhaps the most disturbing upheaval in physics has been the advent of Quantum Theory: preposterous conceptually, but validated experimentally. "Anyone not shocked by quantum physics has not understood it," claimed Niels Bohr, the highly venerated physicist.10
While the quest for understanding continues, we need to recognize that our current "scientific" track record is disturbingly bleak. If you examine the continuing articles in the vanguard of the "new sciences," it is humbling to recognize how much of our current ontological understanding of the nature of our universe are elaborate extrapolations built on disturbingly small glimpses of actual data. It appears that many investigators consistently draw vast conclusions from half-vast information!
Dark Matter
About two decades ago, astronomers began to recognize that the movements of celestial objects throughout the universe evidenced the existence of some kind of "dark" matter: mass (or energy) that was not visible to their telescopes, but clearly present in their gravitational effects. There have been a number of conjectures regarding the possible nature of this invisible "dark matter," but all of them have eluded any empirical validation.11 What is particularly astonishing about this "dark matter" is that it apparently constitutes about 95% of all the matter in the universe! It is disturbing to realize that all that we know about atoms - the electrons, protons and neutrons, etc. - is but a small fraction of the physical reality around us. A very small sample indeed.
And now it has been discovered that our understanding of the much-celebrated DNA is on the same frail, shaky foundation.
"Junk" DNA
The science community has seen some major milestones in recent years, including the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the famed double helix and the Human Genome Project completing its "final draft" of the DNA sequence for Homo Sapiens. The code sequences in the DNA molecule have begun to unlock the mysteries of life itself.
The proteins that make up the many mechanisms within the living cell are manufactured in four steps: First, an enzyme docks to the chromosome and slides along the gene, transcribing the sequence on one strand of DNA into a single strand of RNA. Next, any introns - the non-coding parts of the transcript - are snipped out, and the rest is spliced together to make a piece of "messenger RNA."12 (See chart)
The RNA message then moves out of the nucleus to the main part of the cell, where molecular machines translate it into chains of amino acids which become the proteins required. (See chart.) Finally, each protein chain twists and folds into its intricate and unique three-dimensional shape.
The non-coding parts of the DNA, the "introns," have been regarded as "evolutionary junk," and are so designated in current textbooks. What is shocking is that this "junk DNA" constitutes 98% of the DNA! Some humility seems to be called for. Again, it appears that we have hardly scratched the surface...
Hiding behind the basic DNA sequence are at least two layers of information beyond the traditionally recognized genes. One layer is woven throughout the vast "non-coding" sequences of DNA that interrupt and separate the genes. These have previously been written off as irrelevant because they yield no proteins, and have been widely dismissed as vestiges of "millions of years of evolution," etc. Now scientists are beginning to suspect that much of what makes one person, or species, different from another are the variations hidden within our "junk" DNA.
Beyond the specific DNA sequence itself is another layer of information in the chromosomes: "Epigenetic marks, embedded in the mélange of proteins and chemicals that surround and support the DNA, operate through cryptic codes and mysterious machinery. Unlike genes, epigenetic marks are routinely laid down, erased, and rewritten on the fly."13
As biologists sift through the novel kinds of active RNA genes from among the long-neglected introns and intergenic stretches of DNA, no one can yet predict where it will all lead. What was once condemned as junk (because it was not understood) may turn out to be the very basis of human complexity.
What is astonishing - and disturbing - about the process of contemporary science is that its practitioners obstinately cling to their evolutionary premises - a context that continues to be brutally assaulted by the evidence. Calls for evidence-based education are dismissed as heretical by the Praetorians of the current priesthood running the government schools.
An Inescapable Conclusion
What is even more remarkable than the myopia of the biologists is this: that as scientists scan the heavens with their radio telescopes in the hopes of receiving communication signals as evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, they remain oblivious to the implications of the multilayered error-correcting digital codes already discovered within the human genome! Here is an information system that continues to challenge our understanding, and yet they still insist on willfully ascribing it all to the unaided interaction of random processes!
Peter was indeed correct when he called them "willingly ignorant":
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
2 Peter 3:5-7
The Psalmist gasped more tellingly:
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
Psalm 8:3, 4
* * *
The Flight From Materialism
Whether disillusioned by the self-imposed blinders and myopia of contemporary "science," or frustrated by the moral bankruptcy of our unbridled materialism, it shouldn't surprise us to find increasing numbers of desperate people seeking "answers" outside the pale of natural phenomena and pursuing the supernatural. The anguished plea of the disenfranchised now begs the question, "Is there anyone out there?"
This leads, ironically, to mysticism as the illusive refuge of the uninformed. This departure from empirically verifiable foundations is not only foolish, it is far more dangerous than one can possibly imagine.
In our next article, we will explore the contemporary resurgence of ancient mysticisms, including Gnosticism and the Hebrew Kabbalah, which are gaining popularity in certain circles. Stay tuned.
That's a ridiculous connection.
"This is a simple statement but it is also simply not true.
Amino acids are very simple. Proteins are built from thousands of amino acids being strung together in a very specific pattern.
Evaporation, tidal pools,lightning, clay to crystallize and
lend microscopic irregular and complex shape probably all were part of mix.
Since it takes millions of years to do this randomly. I don't think it's going to spontaniously happen in a cocktail mixing jar shaken just well."
Exactly why I provided you could control the environment.
Now, if you would be willing to concede that without direct intervention it is impossible, we will get on with our lives.
First, you're grossly misrepresenting evolutionary biology by implying that there's nothing more to it than just "random chance"... Is your understanding of it really that cartoonish, or are you just being dishonest about it?
Second, none of this stuff looks like "a simple explanation" -- maybe your (mis)understanding of it is the only thing that's "simple" here:
Comparative functional genomics revealed conservation and diversification of three enhancers of the isl1 gene for motor and sensory neuron-specific expression....and thousands more.Abstract: Islet-1 (Isl1) is a member of the Isl1 family of LIM-homeodomain transcription factors (LIM-HD) that is expressed in a defined subset of motor and sensory neurons during vertebrate embryogenesis. To investigate how this specific expression of isl1 is regulated, we searched for enhancers of the isl1 gene that are conserved in vertebrate evolution. Initially, two enhancer elements, CREST1 and CREST2, were identified downstream of the isl1 locus in the genomes of fugu, chick, mouse, and human by BLAST searching for highly similar elements to those originally identified as motor and sensory neuron-specific enhancers in the zebrafish genome. The combined action of these elements is sufficient for completely recapitulating the subtype-specific expression of the isl1 gene in motor neurons of the mouse spinal cord. Furthermore, by direct comparison of the upstream flanking regions of the zebrafish and human isl1 genes, we identified another highly conserved noncoding element, CREST3, and subsequently C3R, a similar element to CREST3 with two CDP CR1 recognition motifs, in the upstream regions of all other isl1 family members. In mouse and human, CRESTs are located as far as more than 300 kb away from the isl1 locus, while they are much closer to the isl1 locus in zebrafish. Although all of zebrafish CREST2, CREST3, and C3R activate gene expression in the sensory neurons of zebrafish, CREST2 of mouse and human does not have the sequence necessary for sensory neuron-specific expression. Our results revealed both a remarkable conservation of the regulatory elements regulating subtype-specific gene expression in motor and sensory neurons and the dynamic process of reorganization of these elements whereby each element increases the level of cell-type specificity by losing redundant functions with the other elements during vertebrate evolution.Kinematic and EMG Determinants in Quadrupedal Locomotion of a Non-Human Primate (Rhesus).
Abstract: We hypothesized that the activation patterns of flexor and extensor muscles and the resulting kinematics of the forelimbs and hindlimbs during locomotion in the Rhesus would have unique characteristics relative to other quadrupedal mammals. Adaptations of limb movements and in motor pool recruitment patterns in accommodating a range of treadmill speeds similar to other terrestrial animals in both the hindlimb and forelimb were observed. Flexor and extensor motor neurons from motor pools in the lumbar segments, however, were more highly coordinated than in the cervical segments. Unlike the lateral sequence characterizing subprimate quadrupedal locomotion, non-human primates use diagonal coordination between the hindlimbs and forelimbs, similar to that observed in humans between the legs and arms. Although there was a high level of coordination between hindlimb and forelimb locomotion kinematics, limb-specific neural control strategies were evident in the inter-segmental coordination patterns and limb endpoint trajectories. Based on limb kinematics and muscle recruitment patterns, it appears that the hindlimbs, and notably the distal extremities, contribute more to body propulsion than the forelimbs. Furthermore, we found adaptive changes in the recruitment patterns of distal muscles in the hindlimb and forelimb with increased treadmill speed that likely correlate with the anatomical and functional evolution of hand and foot digits in monkeys. Changes in the properties of both the spinal and supraspinal circuitry related to stepping, probably account for the peculiarities in the kinematic and EMG properties during non-human primate locomotion. We suggest that such adaptive changes may have facilitated evolution toward bipedal locomotion.Abstract: Pax2 is the earliest known gene to be expressed throughout the mid-hindbrain region in late gastrula embryos of the mouse and is essential for the formation of an organizing center at the midbrain-hindbrain boundary (MHB), which controls midbrain and cerebellum development. We have used transgenic analysis to identify three MHB-specific enhancers in the upstream region of the mouse Pax2 gene. A 120 bp enhancer (at -3.7 kb) in cooperation with the endogenous promoter was sufficient to induce transgene expression in the anterior neural plate of late gastrula embryos, while it was already inactivated again at the MHB during somitogenesis. The activity of this early enhancer was severely reduced by mutation of three homeodomain-binding sites, two of which are part of a recognition sequence for POU homeodomain proteins. Oct3/4 (Pou5f1), the mouse ortholog of zebrafish Pou2, efficiently bound to this sequence, suggesting its involvement in the regulation of the early Pax2 enhancer. Starting at the four-somite stage, Pax2 is expressed at the MHB under the control of two enhancers located at -4.1 kb and -2.8 kb. The distal late enhancer contains a 102 bp sequence that is not only highly conserved between the mouse and pufferfish Pax2 genes, but also contributes to the enhancer activity of both genes in transgenic mice. The proximal 410 bp enhancer, which overlaps with a kidney-specific regulatory element, contains a functional Pax2/5/8-binding site and thus maintains Pax2 expression at the MHB under auto- and cross-regulatory control by Pax2/5/8 proteins. Importantly, the early and proximal late enhancers are not only sufficient but also necessary for expression at the MHB in the genomic context of the Pax2 locus, as their specific deletion interfered with correct temporal expression of a large Pax2 BAC transgene. Hence, separate enhancers under the control of distinct transcription factors activate and maintain Pax2 expression at the MHB.Abstract: Inductive signaling leads to the coactivation of regulatory pathways for specifying general neuronal traits in parallel with instructions for neuronal subtype specification. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that ensure that these pathways are synchronized have not been defined. To address this, we examined how bHLH proteins Ngn2 and NeuroM controlling neurogenesis functionally converge with LIM-homeodomain (LIM-HD) factors Isl1 and Lhx3 involved in motor neuron subtype specification. We found that Ngn2 and NeuroM transcriptionally synergize with Isl1 and Lhx3 to specify motor neurons in the embryonic spinal cord and in P19 stem cells. The mechanism underlying this cooperativity is based on interactions that directly couple the activity of the bHLH and LIM-HD proteins, mediated by the adaptor protein NLI. This functional link acts to synchronize neuronal subtype specification with neurogenesis.Abstract: We have isolated a neurotrophin from the lamprey that permitted us to perform a phylogenetic analysis of the neurotrophin gene family that dates back more than 460 million years to the early vertebrate ancestors. The results show that the neurotrophin gene family was originally formed by two subsequent duplications. The duplication that formed nerve growth factor, neurotrophin-3, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, and neurotrophin-4/5 occurred after the split of lampreys but before the split of cartilaginous fish from the main vertebrate lineage. Compilation of chromosomal gene maps around the neurotrophins shows that they are located in paralogous regions, suggesting that the genes were formed at major duplication events possibly by complete genome doubling. Analysis of two isolated Trk receptor sequences shows similar results as for the lamprey neurotrophin. Multiple neurotrophin and Trk genes, including neurotrophin-6 and -7, have been found in bony fish, and we suggest that the extra genes were formed by an additional duplication in the bony fish lineage. Analysis of lamprey Trk mRNA expression in the adult brain shows that the genes are expressed in all regions analyzed so far. Together, the results suggest that the duplications of ancestral neurotrophin and Trk genes at an early vertebrate stage have permitted evolution to bring about differential neurotrophin and Trk expression, thereby allowing the formation of specific functions in selective neuronal populations.Early evolutionary origin of the neurotrophin receptor family
Abstract: Neurotrophins and their Trk receptors play a crucial role in the development and maintenance of the vertebrate nervous system, but to date no component of this signalling system has been found in invertebrates. We describe a molluscan Trk receptor, designated Ltrk, from the snail Lymnaea stagnalis. The full-length sequence of Ltrk reveals most of the characteristics typical of Trk receptors, including highly conserved transmembrane and intracellular tyrosine kinase domains, and a typical extracellular domain of leucine-rich motifs flanked by cysteine clusters. In addition, Ltrk has a unique N-terminal extension and lacks immunoglobulin-like domains. Ltrk is expressed during development in a stage-specific manner, and also in the adult, where its expression is confined to the central nervous system and its associated endocrine tissues. Ltrk has the highest sequence identity with the TrkC mammalian receptor and, when exogenously expressed in fibroblasts or COS cells, binds human NT-3, but not NGF or BDNF, with an affinity of 2.5 nM. These findings support an early evolutionary origin of the Trk family as neuronal receptor tyrosine kinases and suggest that Trk signalling mechanisms may be highly conserved between vertebrates and invertebrates.FoxP2 Expression in Avian Vocal Learners and Non-Learners
Abstract: Most vertebrates communicate acoustically, but few, among them humans, dolphins and whales, bats, and three orders of birds, learn this trait. FOXP2 is the first gene linked to human speech and has been the target of positive selection during recent primate evolution. To test whether the expression pattern of FOXP2 is consistent with a role in learned vocal communication, we cloned zebra finch FoxP2 and its close relative FoxP1 and compared mRNA and protein distribution in developing and adult brains of a variety of avian vocal learners and non-learners, and a crocodile. We found that the protein sequence of zebra finch FoxP2 is 98% identical with mouse and human FOXP2. In the avian and crocodilian forebrain, FoxP2 was expressed predominantly in the striatum, a basal ganglia brain region affected in patients with FOXP2 mutations. Strikingly, in zebra finches, the striatal nucleus Area X, necessary for vocal learning, expressed more FoxP2 than the surrounding tissue at post-hatch days 35 and 50, when vocal learning occurs. In adult canaries, FoxP2 expression in Area X differed seasonally; more FoxP2 expression was associated with times when song becomes unstable. In adult chickadees, strawberry finches, song sparrows, and Bengalese finches, Area X expressed FoxP2 to different degrees. Non-telencephalic regions in both vocal learning and non-learning birds, and in crocodiles, were less variable in expression and comparable with regions that express FOXP2 in human and rodent brains. We conclude that differential expression of FoxP2 in avian vocal learners might be associated with vocal plasticity.Abstract: A comparative analysis of LIM-homeodomain (LIM-hd) expression patterns in the developing stage 32 Xenopus brain is presented. x-Lhx2, x-Lhx7, and x-Lhx9 were isolated and their expression, together with that of x-Lhx1 and x-Lhx5, was analyzed in terms of prosomeric brain development and LIM-hd combinatorial code and compared with mouse expression data. The results show an almost complete conservation of expression patterns in the diencephalon. The Lhx1/5 and Lhx2/9 subgroups label the pretectum/ventral thalamus/zona limitans versus the dorsal thalamus, respectively, in alternating stripes of expression in both species. Conversely, strong divergences in expression patterns are observed between the telencephalon of the two species for Lhx1/5 and Lhx2/9. Lhx7 exhibits particularly conservative patterns and is proposed as a medial ganglionic eminence marker. The conservation of diencephalic segments is proposed to mirror the conservative nature of diencephalic structures across vertebrates. In contrast, the telencephalic divergences are proposed to reflect the emergence of significant novelty in the telencephalon (connectivity changes) at the anamniote/amniote transition. Moreover, the data allow the new delineation of pallial and subpallial domains in the developing frog telencephalon, which are compared with mouse subdivisions. In the pallium, the mouse combinatorial expression of LIM-hd is notably richer than in the frog, again possibly reflecting evolutionary changes in cortical connectivity.Abstract: The dynamic expression patterns of the single amphioxus Distal-less homolog (AmphiDll) during development are consistent with successive roles of this gene in global regionalization of the ectoderm, establishment of the dorsoventral axis, specification of migratory epidermal cells early in neurulation and the specification of forebrain. Such a multiplicity of Distal-less functions probably represents an ancestral chordate condition and, during craniate evolution, when this gene diversified into a family of six or so members, the original functions evidently tended to be parcelled out among the descendant genes. In the amphioxus gastrula, AmphiDll is expressed throughout the animal hemisphere (presumptive ectoderm), but is soon downregulated dorsally (in the presumptive neural plate). During early neurulation, AmphiDll-expressing epidermal cells flanking the neural plate extend lamellipodia, appear to migrate over it and meet mid-dorsally. Midway in neurulation, cells near the anterior end of the neural plate begin expressing AmphiDll and, as neurulation terminates, these cells are incorporated into the dorsal part of the neural tube, which forms by a curling of the neural plate. This group of AmphiDll-expressing neural cells and a second group expressing the gene a little later and even more anteriorly in the neural tube demarcate a region that comprises the anterior three/fourths of the cerebral vesicle; this region of the amphioxus neural tube, as judged by neural expression domains of craniate Distal-less-related genes, is evidently homologous to the craniate forebrain. Our results suggest that craniates evolved from an amphioxus-like creature that had the beginnings of a forebrain and possibly a precursor of neural crest - namely, the cell population leading the epidermal overgrowth of the neural plate during early neurulation.Evolution of neural precursor selection: functional divergence of proneural proteins
Abstract: How conserved pathways are differentially regulated to produce diverse outcomes is a fundamental question of developmental and evolutionary biology. The conserved process of neural precursor cell (NPC) selection by basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proneural transcription factors in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) by atonal related proteins (ARPs) presents an excellent model in which to address this issue. Proneural ARPs belong to two highly related groups: the ATONAL (ATO) group and the NEUROGENIN (NGN) group. We used a cross-species approach to demonstrate that the genetic and molecular mechanisms by which ATO proteins and NGN proteins select NPCs are different. Specifically, ATO group genes efficiently induce neurogenesis in Drosophila but very weakly in Xenopus, while the reverse is true for NGN group proteins. This divergence in proneural activity is encoded by three residues in the basic domain of ATO proteins. In NGN proteins, proneural capacity is encoded by the equivalent three residues in the basic domain and a novel motif in the second Helix (H2) domain. Differential interactions with different types of zinc (Zn)-finger proteins mediate the divergence of ATO and NGN activities: Senseless is required for ATO group activity, whereas MyT1 is required for NGN group function. These data suggest an evolutionary divergence in the mechanisms of NPC selection between protostomes and deuterostomes.Abstract: Excess all-trans retinoic acid (RA) causes severe craniofacial malformations in vertebrate embryos: pharyngeal arches are fused or absent, and a rostrad expansion of Hoxb-1 expression in the hindbrain shows that anterior rhombomeres are homeotically respecified to a more posterior identity. As a corollary, neural crest migration into the pharyngeal arches is abnormal. We administered excess RA to developing amphioxus, the closest invertebrate relative of the vertebrates and thus a key organism for understanding evolution of the vertebrate body plan. In normal amphioxus, the nerve cord has only a slight anterior swelling, the cerebral vesicle, and apparently lacks migratory neural crest. Nevertheless, excess RA similarly affects amphioxus and vertebrates. The expression domain of AmphiHox-1 (homologous to mouse Hoxb-1) in the amphioxus nerve cord is also extended anteriorly. For both the amphioxus and mouse genes, excess RA causes either (1) continuous expression throughout the preotic hindbrain (mouse) and from the level of somite 7 to the anterior end of the nerve cord (amphioxus) or (2) discontinuous expression with a gap in rhombomere 3 (mouse) and a gap at the posterior end of the cerebral vesicle (amphioxus). A comparison of these expression patterns suggests that amphioxus has a homolog of the vertebrate hindbrain, both preotic and postotic. Although RA alters the expression of AmphiHox-1 expression in the amphioxus nerve cord, it does not alter the expression of AmphiHox-1 in presomitic mesoderm or of alkali myosin light chain (AmphiMlc-alk) in somites, and the axial musculature and notochord develop normally. The most striking morphogenetic effect of RA on amphioxus larvae is the failure of mouth and gill slits to form. In vertebrates effects of excess RA on pharyngeal development have been attributed solely to the abnormal migratory patterns of Hox-expressing cranial neural crest cells. This cannot be true for amphioxus because of the lack of migratory neural crest. Furthermore, expression of Hox genes in pharyngeal tissues of amphioxus has not yet been detected. However, the absence of gill slits in RA-treated amphioxus embryos correlates with an RA-induced failure of AmphiPax-1 to become down-regulated in regions of pharyngeal endoderm that would normally fuse with the overlying ectoderm. In vertebrates, RA might similarly act via Pax-1/9, also expressed in pharyngeal endoderm, to impair pharyngeal patterning.
Does that really sound like a "simple explanation" to you, Mac?
Compare and contrast to the creationists' "GodDidIt", especially in regards to explanatory power, falsifiability, and level of detail.
"I think I just said the opposite. If you need to observed this to believe the evidence then you need to rush out into the universe...find a sterile but vital world and watch it closely.
You will be rewarded if you give it enough time. "
A crude assumption, but if you can show me, I will be willing to change my views.
What you did was chronical the steps involved in making life more complicated. Racking all of that up to "eh, it could happen anywhere" is simplification.
My arguement is not against evolution, but against abio-genesis.
Debate that please.
And by the way, we've butted heads before. You never get anywhere with me, and I only get wiser to those who refuse to open their eyes to ID.
Just repeating it and stamping your feet and holding your breath until you turn blue doesn't make it so, son.
Where did these amino acids come from?
Amino acids form naturally.
When did they become living?
About 3.5 billion years ago, around sub-sea thermal vents.
We can't reproduce it in any "naturalistic" environment.
We don't have the time or resources to make our own mountains via plate tectonics either, but given the overwhelming evidence, only an idiot would deny that that's how mountains are formed.
Ditto for abiogenesis. The evidence points clearly to a specific time, place, and manner for the "bootstrapping" of life from metal-ion autocatalytic reactions.
IF we ever create life, it's going to envolve ALOT of engineering, which would still support my claim to ID.
Heads you win, tails you win, eh? Then something's obviously wrong with your hypothesis, if no experimental outcome could possibly falsify it, and all outcomes "prove" it...
It is less for me to prove ID, more for you to prove a random event can cause life.
You guys *really* need to get off the "random" fixation. There is *far* more to biochemistry than the sort of "winning the lottery" randomness that you guys can't seem to get beyond.
Evolution happens. On what scale we can debate all day.
You can, anyway -- those who are familiar with the evidence *know* its scope and scale and history.
My purpose on this thread is to advocate ID, which you cannot hope to counter with anything scientific, because science doesn't disagree with it!
Say what?
ScienTISTS may, but they are human and subject to folly.
That cuts both ways, kid. But *we're* the ones who have spent over a hundred years submitting *our* position to literally millions of different kinds of reality checks against the real-world evidence, and it has passed the challenges. Yours has yet to progress beyond, "it sure does look complicated to me, I can't imagine how it could be anything other than designed..."
"Just repeating it and stamping your feet and holding your breath until you turn blue doesn't make it so, son."
Thanks "Dad" I'll keep that in mind next time I hear a peasant in the dark ages say "Oh look, rain is going to make worms!"
Get with the program Pops, your old way of assuming your self rightous purity of mind is nothing more than you telling yourself you can take on anything in existance.
You can't even perfom a simple lab experiment to prove your point, and you want the entire world to bend to your ideas. Such a concete you "scientists" have. You tout a claim of unbiased knowledge, and then back it up by simply saying "nope, religion is wrong, and I have no proof, but you have to prove to me why I'm wrong."
You are wrong buddy. Dead wrong. If you would like to get a glass of water, put some amino acids in it, provide all the energy you damn well please, and keep it away from pre-existing life; you will NEVER make life.
You would have to construct it your self. You know it to well to.
My point in stating that you cannot disprove ID by making it happen is not a catch-22 as you so implied. Read the actual statements and come to a real conclusion, not what others ahve been telling you for years.
If you can provide the environment for it and life happens, then I would gladly admit my wrongness and denounce my God. If you have to create it, the fact remains, life must be created.
If I had said "Provide the environment, and if it happens by itself, my God did it" THEN you could call me what you will.
It seems, however, that your leaps in logic include leaps to assumptions and away from the evidence right in front of your less-than-humble nose.
Who exactly do you say "racks all of that up" to "eh, it could happen anywhere"? Please try to be coherent.
My arguement is not against evolution, but against abio-genesis.
Then why were you wasting your time talking about whether "something so complex as your nervous system came about by random chance", if you weren't really interested in that topic? Or did you only become suddenly disinterested in it once I replied and showed that science knows a hell of a lot about that process, and you'd be out of your league to try to continue to discuss it beyond your misleading implication that science says it was just due to "random chance"?
Debate that please.
Okay. Feel free to explain what exactly is wrong with the following scenarios and research results, which are based on a great deal of evidence as to the processes by which early life arose:
On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells William Martin and Michael J. RussellAnd:Abstract: All life is organized as cells. Physical compartmentation from the environment and self-organization of self-contained redox reactions are the most conserved attributes of living things, hence inorganic matter with such attributes would be life’s most likely forebear. We propose that life evolved in structured iron monosulphide precipitates in a seepage site hydrothermal mound at a redox, pH and temperature gradient between sulphide-rich hydrothermal fluid and iron(II)-containing waters of the Hadean ocean floor. The naturally arising, three-dimensional compartmentation observed within fossilized seepage-site metal sulphide precipitates indicates that these inorganic compartments were the precursors of cell walls and membranes found in free-living prokaryotes. The known capability of FeS and NiS to catalyse the synthesis of the acetyl-methylsulphide from carbon monoxide and methylsulphide, constituents of hydrothermal fluid, indicates that pre-biotic syntheses occurred at the inner surfaces of these metal-sulphide-walled compartments, which furthermore restrained reacted products from diffusion into the ocean, providing sufficient concentrations of reactants to forge the transition from geochemistry to biochemistry. The chemistry of what is known as the RNA-world could have taken place within these naturally forming, catalyticwalled compartments to give rise to replicating systems. Sufficient concentrations of precursors to support replication would have been synthesized in situ geochemically and biogeochemically, with FeS (and NiS) centres playing the central catalytic role. The universal ancestor we infer was not a free-living cell, but rather was confined to the naturally chemiosmotic, FeS compartments within which the synthesis of its constituents occurred. The first free-living cells are suggested to have been eubacterial and archaebacterial chemoautotrophs that emerged more than 3.8 Gyr ago from their inorganic confines. We propose that the emergence of these prokaryotic lineages from inorganic confines occurred independently, facilitated by the independent origins of membrane-lipid biosynthesis: isoprenoid ether membranes in the archaebacterial and fatty acid ester membranes in the eubacterial lineage. The eukaryotes, all of which are ancestrally heterotrophs and possess eubacterial lipids, are suggested to have arisen ca. 2 Gyr ago through symbiosis involving an autotrophic archaebacterial host and a heterotrophic eubacterial symbiont, the common ancestor of mitochondria and hydrogenosomes. The attributes shared by all prokaryotes are viewed as inheritances from their confined universal ancestor. The attributes that distinguish eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet are uniform within the groups, are viewed as relics of their phase of differentiation after divergence from the non-free-living universal ancestor and before the origin of the free-living chemoautotrophic lifestyle. The attributes shared by eukaryotes with eubacteria and archaebacteria, respectively, are viewed as inheritances via symbiosis. The attributes unique to eukaryotes are viewed as inventions specific to their lineage. The origin of the eukaryotic endomembrane system and nuclear membrane are suggested to be the fortuitous result of the expression of genes for eubacterial membrane lipid synthesis by an archaebacterial genetic apparatus in a compartment that was not fully prepared to accommodate such compounds, resulting in vesicles of eubacterial lipids that accumulated in the cytosol around their site of synthesis. Under these premises, the most ancient divide in the living world is that between eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet the steepest evolutionary grade is that between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
The emergence of life from iron monosulphide bubbles at a submarine hydrothermal redox and pH front M. J. RUSSELL & A. J. HALL: Department of Geology and Applied Geology, University of GlasgowAnd:Abstract: Here we argue that life emerged on Earth from a redox and pH front at c. 4.2 Ga. This front occurred where hot (c. 150)C), extremely reduced, alkaline, bisulphide-bearing, submarine seepage waters interfaced with the acid, warm (c. 90)C), iron-bearing Hadean ocean. The low pH of the ocean was imparted by the ten bars of CO2 considered to dominate the Hadean atmosphere/hydrosphere. Disequilibrium between the two solutions was maintained by the spontaneous precipitation of a colloidal FeS membrane. Iron monosulphide bubbles comprising this membrane were inflated by the hydrothermal solution upon sulphide mounds at the seepage sites. Our hypothesis is that the FeS membrane, laced with nickel, acted as a semipermeable catalytic boundary between the two fluids, encouraging synthesis of organic anions by hydrogenation and carboxylation of hydrothermal organic primers. The ocean provided carbonate, phosphate, iron, nickel and protons; the hydrothermal solution was the source of ammonia, acetate, HS", H2 and tungsten, as well as minor concentrations of organic sulphides and perhaps cyanide and acetaldehyde. The mean redox potential (ÄEh) across the membrane, with the energy to drive synthesis, would have approximated to 300 millivolts. The generation of organic anions would have led to an increase in osmotic pressure within the FeS bubbles. Thus osmotic pressure could take over from hydraulic pressure as the driving force for distension, budding and reproduction of the bubbles. Condensation of the organic molecules to polymers, particularly organic sulphides, was driven by pyrophosphate hydrolysis. Regeneration of pyrophosphate from the monophosphate in the membrane was facilitated by protons contributed from the Hadean ocean. This was the first use by a metabolizing system of protonmotive force (driven by natural ÄpH) which also would have amounted to c. 300 millivolts. Protonmotive force is the universal energy transduction mechanism of life. Taken together with the redox potential across the membrane, the total electrochemical and chemical energy available for protometabolism amounted to a continuous supply at more than half a volt. The role of the iron sulphide membrane in keeping the two solutions separated was appropriated by the newly synthesized organic sulphide polymers. This organic take-over of the membrane material led to the miniaturization of the metabolizing system. Information systems to govern replication could have developed penecontemporaneously in this same milieu. But iron, sulphur and phosphate, inorganic components of earliest life, continued to be involved in metabolism.
The Path from the RNA World Anthony M. Poole, Daniel C. Jeffares, David Penny: Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Massey University(Note: The above papers are a few years old -- anyone who tries to rebut them without familiarity with the amount of confirmation of those scenarios which has already come flooding in the past few years is only going to make an ass of themselves...)Abstract: We describe a sequential (step by step) Darwinian model for the evolution of life from the late stages of the RNA world through to the emergence of eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The starting point is our model, derived from current RNA activity, of the RNA world just prior to the advent of genetically-encoded protein synthesis. By focusing on the function of the protoribosome we develop a plausible model for the evolution of a protein-synthesizing ribosome from a high-fidelity RNA polymerase that incorporated triplets of oligonucleotides. With the standard assumption that during the evolution of enzymatic activity, catalysis is transferred from RNA M RNP M protein, the first proteins in the ``breakthrough organism'' (the first to have encoded protein synthesis) would be nonspecific chaperone-like proteins rather than catalytic. Moreover, because some RNA molecules that pre-date protein synthesis under this model now occur as introns in some of the very earliest proteins, the model predicts these particular introns are older than the exons surrounding them, the ``introns-first'' theory. Many features of the model for the genome organization in the final RNA world ribo-organism are more prevalent in the eukaryotic genome and we suggest that the prokaryotic genome organization (a single, circular genome with one center of replication) was derived from a ``eukaryotic-like'' genome organization (a fragmented linear genome with multiple centers of replication). The steps from the proposed ribo-organism RNA genome M eukaryotic-like DNA genome M prokaryotic-like DNA genome are all relatively straightforward, whereas the transition prokaryotic-like genome M eukaryotic-like genome appears impossible under a Darwinian mechanism of evolution, given the assumption of the transition RNA M RNP M protein. A likely molecular mechanism, ``plasmid transfer,'' is available for the origin of prokaryotic-type genomes from an eukaryotic-like architecture. Under this model prokaryotes are considered specialized and derived with reduced dependence on ssRNA biochemistry. A functional explanation is that prokaryote ancestors underwent selection for thermophily (high temperature) and/or for rapid reproduction (r selection) at least once in their history.
On the RNA World: Evidence in Favor of an Early Ribonucleopeptide World
Inhibition of Ribozymes by Deoxyribonucleotides and the Origin of DNA
Genetic Code Origin: Are the Pathways of Type Glu-tRNAGln to Gln-tRNAGln Molecular Fossils or Not?
Johnston WK, Unrau PJ, Lawrence MS, Glasner ME, Bartel DP.RNA-catalyzed RNA polymerization: accurate and general RNA-templated primer extension. Science. 2001 May 18;292(5520):1319-25.
Ferris JP. (1999 Jun). Prebiotic synthesis on minerals: bridging the prebiotic and RNA worlds. Biol Bull , 196, 311-4.
Levy M, and Miller SL. (1999 Jun). The prebiotic synthesis of modified purines and their potential role in the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 48, 631-7.
Unrau PJ, and Bartel DP. (1998 Sep 17). RNA-catalysed nucleotide synthesis [see comments] Nature , 395, 260-3.
Roth A, and Breaker RR. (1998 May 26). An amino acid as a cofactor for a catalytic polynucleotide [In Process Citation] Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A , 95, 6027-31.
Jeffares DC, Poole AM, and Penny D. (1998 Jan). Relics from the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 46, 18-36.
Poole AM, Jeffares DC, and Penny D. (1998 Jan). The path from the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 46, 1-17.
Wiegand TW, Janssen RC, and Eaton BE. (1997 Sep). Selection of RNA amide synthases. Chem Biol , 4, 675-83.
Di Giulio M. (1997 Dec). On the RNA world: evidence in favor of an early ribonucleopeptide world. J Mol Evol , 45, 571-8.
Hager AJ, and Szostak JW. (1997 Aug). Isolation of novel ribozymes that ligate AMP-activated RNA substrates. Chem Biol , 4, 607-17.
James KD, and Ellington AD. (1997 Aug). Surprising fidelity of template-directed chemical ligation of oligonucleotides [In Process Citation] Chem Biol , 4, 595-605.
Lohse PA, and Szostak JW. (1996 May 30). Ribozyme-catalysed amino-acid transfer reactions. Nature , 381, 442-4.
Lazcano A, and Miller SL. (1996 Jun 14). The origin and early evolution of life: prebiotic chemistry, the pre- RNA world, and time. Cell , 85, 793-8.
Ertem G, and Ferris JP. (1996 Jan 18). Synthesis of RNA oligomers on heterogeneous templates. Nature , 379, 238-40.
Robertson MP, and Miller SL. (1995 May 5). Prebiotic synthesis of 5-substituted uracils: a bridge between the RNA world and the DNA-protein world [see comments] Science , 268, 702-5.
Robertson MP, and Miller SL. (1995 Jun 29). An efficient prebiotic synthesis of cytosine and uracil [published erratum appears in Nature 1995 Sep 21;377(6546):257] Nature , 375, 772-4.
Breaker RR, and Joyce GF. (1995 Jun). Self-incorporation of coenzymes by ribozymes. J Mol Evol , 40, 551-8.
James KD, and Ellington AD. (1995 Dec). The search for missing links between self-replicating nucleic acids and the RNA world. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 25, 515-30.
Bohler C, Nielsen PE, and Orgel LE. (1995 Aug 17). Template switching between PNA and RNA oligonucleotides [see comments] Nature , 376, 578-81.
Connell GJ, and Christian EL. (1993 Dec). Utilization of cofactors expands metabolism in a new RNA world. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 23, 291-7.
Nielsen PE. (1993 Dec). Peptide nucleic acid (PNA): a model structure for the primordial genetic material? Orig Life Evol Biosph , 23, 323-7.
Lahav N. (1991 Aug 21). Prebiotic co-evolution of self-replication and translation or RNA world? J Theor Biol , 151, 531-9.
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And by the way, we've butted heads before.
That's okay, I have experience with butt-heads.
You never get anywhere with me,
That's because you're not willing to follow the evidence where it indicates.
and I only get wiser to those who refuse to open their eyes to ID.
Really now... Where exactly have I "refused to open my eyes to ID"? Be specific, and link my post(s). And/or state that which you imagine I am not "seeing".
I was talking to the person before you about their feelings of "eh, it could happen anywhere." You came in and turned it into a discussion on evolution (not abio-genesis)
"That's okay, I have experience with butt-heads"
That right there merits my feeling that you are concieted and a waste of time. Good day.
Blah blah blah... Let me know when you get done ranting and start talking about something of substance, and the evidence it's based upon.
You can't even perfom a simple lab experiment to prove your point,
Sure I can, actually. And annually millions of such experiments are performed all around the world. Check out those links I gave you, for example. Try stepping into one of those "library" things you must have heard about at some point, especially any reasonably well-stocked university library (one which offers post-graduate science degrees), or research library.
and you want the entire world to bend to your ideas.
You're obviously hallucinating. You might want to get that paranoid persecution complex tweaked a bit, they're making some good medications for that kind of thing these days (many of them developed by evolutionary processes, by the way, *gasp*!)
Such a concete you "scientists" have.
Is "concete" anything like a "conceit", or were you trying for "concrete"?
You tout a claim of unbiased knowledge, and then back it up by simply saying "nope, religion is wrong, and I have no proof, but you have to prove to me why I'm wrong."
Okay, I'll bite -- where have you EVER seen me say anything as stupid as that? You're hallucinating again. Your fantasies about what those "know-it-all" scientists say actually say more about your own defensiveness than they say about actual science or actual scientists.
You are wrong buddy. Dead wrong.
Where, exactly? Be specific.
If you would like to get a glass of water, put some amino acids in it, provide all the energy you damn well please, and keep it away from pre-existing life; you will NEVER make life.
Well of course not, because that's not even *remotely* similar to the conditions which actually birthed life. Is your knowledge of biochemistry really that cartoonish, or were you dishonestly presenting a straw-man knowingly?
Either way, it hardly inspires confidence in your ability to hold up your end of the discussion.
You would have to construct it your self. You know it to well to.
No, actually, what I *do* know is that life managed to bootstrap itself through a sequence of successive stages, as clearly indicated in the mass of biochemical evidence which has been flooding in over the past decade or so as research in this area has reached the take-off point.
I'm sorry if *you're* behind on your journal reading, but *I'm* not.
And do not presume to tell me what I "know", child.
My point in stating that you cannot disprove ID by making it happen is not a catch-22 as you so implied.
Where in the *hell* did you find anything like *that* in my posts? Hallucinating again?
Read the actual statements and come to a real conclusion, not what others ahve been telling you for years.
Again, you presume to "know" what I know and have learned (and how) on this topic. Your arrogance knows no bounds, and is especially ironic in light of your obviously superficial familiarity with this topic.
If you can provide the environment for it and life happens, then I would gladly admit my wrongness and denounce my God.
Where in the heck do you get the ridiculous notion that a natural origin for life would somehow "disprove your God" or require you to "denounce" anything? It has apparently escaped your attention that the majority of Americans who accept the validity of evolution are *Christians*. If they can reconcile those beliefs, you can too.
If you have to create it, the fact remains, life must be created.
No need, it has already arisen on its own.
If I had said "Provide the environment, and if it happens by itself, my God did it" THEN you could call me what you will.
Um, okay....
It seems, however, that your leaps in logic include leaps to assumptions and away from the evidence right in front of your less-than-humble nose.
Actually, the only one here who is making "leaps in logic which include leaps to assumptions" is yourself, when you keep ascribing all sorts of bizarre statements and motivations to me, for no cause whatsoever.
You observed this? You must be a lot older than I thought you were.
"I have a very simple response to that . Submarine vents don't make organic compounds, they decompose them. Indeed, these vents are one of the limiting factors on what organic compounds you are going to have in the primitive oceans. At the present time, the entire ocean goes through those vents in 10 million years. So all of the organic compounds get zapped every ten million years. That places a constraint on how much organic material you can get. Furthermore, it gives you a time scale for the origin of life. If all the polymers and other goodies that you make get destroyed, it means life has to start early and rapidly. If you look at the process in detail, it seems that long periods of time are detrimental, rather than helpful." Stanley Miller
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