New evidence that natural selection is a general driving force behind the origin of species

Vanderbilt University ^ | 23 February 2006 | Staff

[furball4paws]

The purpose, from my point of view, is to get you to talk. You take it where you will.

You can't upgrade the Chevy until you have a Chevy.

[furball4paws]

How do you keep your "storehouse" of new parts stable?

[furball4paws]

As of this time, I have concluded that muawiyah is not a closet Creationist/IDer. He appears to be firmly entrenched in the lunatic fringe. This is not all bad. New and sometimes revolutionary ideas often arise out of this fringe, along with a stream of weird, silly or lunatic things.

Filtering this stuff can be entertaining, potentially interesting, and often tedious.

More updates at 11.

[muawiyah]

And, of course, that's where I end it. For all we know, that Chevy came from another universe and may have purposes all its own, but relevant only at another time somewhere else.

None of this needs a purpose you know.

[muawiyah]

Just like we could make new parts for that Chevy and coat them with anondised aluminum, we could make other parts out of materials whose constituent ingredients stick together indefinitely.

Or, alternatively, build a miniature factory to go along with the parts. It's purpose is to keep producing more parts, of the same kind, but without corrosion.

[balrog666]

I'm not wearing any pants! Film at 11.

[muawiyah]

And, that would, of course, place you firmly in the world of the metaphysics of Natural Selection?

You can tell us ~ we are all among friends.

[jwalsh07]

Natural selection isn't the "driving force" behind the origin of the species any more than you are the "driving force" behind the wheel of your car.

[js1138]

We really need a better class of creationist. The recent recruits are disappointing, and the old ones seem to be stuck in YEC mode.

[muawiyah]

The specific astronomical report I'm looking for is within the last year ~ maybe even within the last 6 months.

However, this finding occurred subsequent to this experiment by NASA: http://www.space.com/searchforlife/space_cells_010129-1.html

[muawiyah]

Uhhh, Furball, you know you're too stodgy to think about this stuff. Why do you even want to discuss it? I never post anything for which there is not some firm reference somewhere else ~ presumably a guy in the field, as you suggest you are, would be up on the latest stuff.

So, what else do you want a link to?

[furball4paws]

Interesting, but you said that there cell wall like chenmicals in stellar dust. This is a lab simulation - interesting but not what you said.

[muawiyah]

No, I didn't say anything about "stellar dust". What I pointed to was an observation that the chemicals that make up cell walls were, in fact, found in space, and not just generally in space, but at a particular area that had been observed.

This is far beyond the earlier (2001/2002) observations of sugar in space, or in a couple of meteorites that'd been closely examined.

I'll find it for you, in the meantime, keep your mind off "dust" ~ we are looking for chemical signatures.

You have to keep on top of this stuff.

BTW, your response reveals yourself to be a "little earth" sort ~ just little earth, teeming with life, trapped in a dead, lifeless and dangerous universe.

That particular point of view is simply a carryover from the days when the "vault of heaven" was thought of as a LID.

[furball4paws]

So, what chemicals found in cells walls are found in space?

(BTW the gratuitous snide remarks don't help your case any :) )

[muawiyah]

They're not gratuitous.

[furball4paws]

I think they are and since they are directed at me, you will have to accept my judgement.

So which part of the peptidoglycan/lipopolysaccharide/protein complex is found in space?

[muawiyah]

I told you I'd get back to you on that once I find the story on the net. In the meantime, be satisfied with NASA's experiment. They created something, then went looking for it, and found it.

Sounds like science at work to me.

In the meantime ponder why we never found life elsewhere in the universe ~ could be we don't know where to look because of the sheer scale of it all.

[furball4paws]

The distances are overwhelming and we have had little time to even look. Someday.

[Virginia-American]

...all at once you had all these multicelled animals full of bones and shells and teeth and such....

Are you sure about bones? There are apparent chordates in the Burgess shale, but no vertebrates. I believe the earliest bony (as opposed to cartilaginous) fishes are Devonian.

[muawiyah]

I'm motivated to view the earliest forms that resemble corals or sponges as having bone.

BTW, note the earlier Edicardian(?) critters ~ which are followed by totally different sets of critters in the Burgess Shales.

The next variations take millions of years to accomplish. Almost like somebody delivered a load of genes, then vanished, then came back, then vanished.