Abstract: Regulation of physiological functions with approximate daily periodicity, or circadian rhythms, is a characteristic feature of eukaryotes. Until recently, cyanobacteria were the only prokaryotes reported to possess circadian rhythmicity. It is controlled by a cluster of three genes: kaiA, kaiB, and kaiC. Using sequence data of 70 complete prokaryotic genomes from the various public depositories, we show here that the kai genes and their homologs have quite a different evolutionary history and occur in Archaea and Proteobacteria as well. Among the three genes, kaiC is evolutionarily the oldest, and kaiA is the youngest and likely evolved only in cyanobacteria. Our data suggest that the prokaryotic circadian pacemakers have evolved in parallel with the geological history of the earth, and that natural selection, multiple lateral transfers, and gene duplications and losses have been the major factors shaping their evolution.
You have turned the analogy backward.
No, I don't. The purpose of the analogy, as used by the "design" people, is to disingenously imply that since it's obviously ludicrous to think of a watch assembling itself through natural processes (because it's not a natural object, and is known to be built by people), that it is equally ludicrous to think that the complexity in living things could have arisen through natural processes.
Where this analogy falls on its face is through its attempt to use a non-living, non-reproducing, non-natural thing (a watch) as a comparison to living, reproducing, natural things (organisms), when those differences make *all* the difference in the world when it comes to the kinds of processes which are at work. Things which reproduce are subject to evolutionary processes, which are very powerful builders of functional complexity, unlike the processes at work on the components of a watch.
The implication is that the watch could not be the product of evolution.
No one claimed that it was. But that's not the point you were actually trying to make -- by analogy, you were dishonestly trying to imply that *living things* couldn't be the product of evolution either, despite the fact that living things *do* indeed evolve.
Mules do not reproduce but are allegedly the product of evolution.
Oh, puh-leaze. They are the product of things which do reproduce, and have been subject to evolution. Don't be coy.
You are also making the same error as a previous poster. You are assuming evolution in your argument to prove evolution.
I'm not making a mistake and neither did he. I am "assuming" evolution because evolution does indeed exist and does indeed occur and does indeed produce functional complexity. These are established facts. Evolution is as real a process as evaporation or oxidation.