Posted on 02/02/2006 1:41:05 PM PST by PissAndVinegar
Scientists have forced a little evolution in the laboratory, controlling whether a caterpillar becomes green or black.
The color of the critter was made to vary with temperature during its development. The experiment reveals the basic hormonal mechanism underlying the evolution of such dual traits, the researchers report in the Feb. 3 issue of the journal Science.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Ping
Congrats--now the "scientists" can do what farmers have done for thousands of years--select out for type.
They have been "forcing" it in the classroom for decades.
But it's still a caterpillar! LOL
Yep, this proves it, the wonders of the human mind and soul developed from primordial sludge.
Color change doesn't prove evolution...Now forcing a catapillar to change into a gecko...that might..
And in a few generations, there will be caterpillars claiming there were no scientists.
What idiot wrote this??? This is NOT evolution, it's just nature. Crocodiles end up either male or female depending on the temperature of the nest. Interesting, but not spectacular.
hmm....so if I have a group of green and black catepillars, and breed them in such a way that only black catepillars come out, this is evolution?
Of course, once the forced control of breeding stops, you go back to green and black catepillars again.
*Gasp* My worldview is skewed beyond belief! My deep-rooted belief in the logical concept of ID is now shattered by the mind-blowingly unique discovery, that has nothing to do with that stupid moth on British trees.
</sarcasm>
If evolution is a genetic alteration, then I don't think this qualifies as evolving.
Similar differences show up in genetically identical ants, which can develop into queens, soldiers or workers based on the hormones they're exposed to early in development.
Maybe I'm missing something, but if they're genetically identical then they're still ants and haven't evolved into anything at all.
Not much of a breakthrough, but it's a slow day so I'll crank up the ping machine.
What rational people do deny, is that this inherent limited variation, which is observed, and somehow proves a grandiose scheme for "macrorevolution" by which new, higher life forms are accidently created again and again. Such "evolution" has never been observed, not even in the lab, not even in scores of thousands of generations of fruit flies, for example.
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I think you ideitified the real question at hand:
Is adapting to your environment considered evolution?
Did Caucasians 'evolve' to be light skinned since they weren't wandering around the desert?
Did (many) Asian 'evolve' to be lactose intolerant because they don't eat dairy products?
Or did they just adapt?
Does adaptation equal evolution?
Suzuki and biology professor Frederik Nijhout worked with black mutants of the normally green M. sexta. The mutants have a lower level of a key hormone.The scientists subjected the black mutants to temperatures above 83 degrees Fahrenheit, and, over a few generations, two types developed. One group turned green and the other didn't.
A more interesting story would be what three thousand years of selecting out for type(s) has done to the silkworm moth--bombyx mori. It is now flightless, helpless, and essentially cannot survive outside the "farm," or "zoo," as it were. There were three thousand years of a "laboratory" that had conditions excellent and conducive for the emergence of a new species--and none emerged. But you could argue that the bombyx mori is now virtually extinct.
So your beef would be with the headline writer?
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