A new generation of scientific mavericks is not content to merely tinker with life's genetic code.

Newsweek International ^ | June 4, 2007 issue | Lee Silver

[ASA Vet]

June 4, 2007 issue - It last happened about 3.6 billion years ago. a tiny living cell emerged from the dust of the Earth. It replicated itself, and its progeny replicated themselves, and so on, with genetic twists and turns down through billions of generations. Today every living organism—every person, plant, animal and microbe—can trace its heritage back to that first cell.

[js1138]

placemarker

[TruthFactor]

The only thing that crawls out of the mud and duplicates itself is a liberal.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How true!

[ahayes]

Also, I found a better fish/tetrapod phylogenetic tree.

(Found here.)

As you can see, the ray-finned fish evolved from the paleoniscoids, while tetrapods evolved from the crossopterygian fish. The tetrapodian line of descent did not go through the ray-finned fish.

[Southack]

"This is something that is seen often throughout evolution--a gene used for one purpose eventually takes on a new one."

No, it's something that we often see in human programming of computers, where one software function, subroutine, object (or even just a class/property) finds an entirely new use for old code.

[Southack]

"Additionally, TLR4 is not present in corals, which contain an ancestral TLR prior to radiation into the chordate TLR family."

Really?! Has that been conclusively determined?

Certainly TLR signaling (re: endotoxic shock) exists in Coral: http://genomebiology.com/2007/8/4/R59

[Southack]

"Cookie for you! TLR4 is present in most ray-finned fish but may be absent from the pufferfish, which has a drastically streamed-down genome (it has removed most transposable elements and some genes--its shortness made it an attractive target for sequencing). It is thought that TLR4 may have another purpose in fish, since it does not appear to respond to endotoxin stimulus..."

How 'bout that! Fish don't have the endotoxic recognition and signaling that ancient Coral and Modern Humans share.

....go figure!

Why, it's almost like DNA code skipping (wink, wink).

[Southack]

"As you can see, the ray-finned fish evolved from the paleoniscoids, while tetrapods evolved from the crossopterygian fish. The tetrapodian line of descent did not go through the ray-finned fish."

Fine! I was giving you a broader target, but your above graph instead pins all of your hopes on Lobe-Fins having the endotoxin recognition and signaling of ancient Coral and Modern Mammals.

Good luck with that slim chance!

[ahayes]

Dear, I thought we were making progress.

Coral have a TLR, fish have multiple TLRs, humans have the TLRs fish have and more. No skipping involved.

[ahayes]

Please read the paper. The TLR found is ancestral to mammalian TLR, and does not match any of them exactly. TLR4 is not found in any invertebrate.

"Whereas the mammalian TLRs, and some members of the fly Toll/TLR family, have only a carboxy-terminal cysteine-rich motif flanking the LRRs proximal to the membrane, Nematostella NvTLR-1 is predicted to contain both carboxy- and amino-terminal-flanking cysteine-rich motifs in the extracellular part of the protein (Figure 2). This suggests that fly and anemone Toll more closely reflect the ancestral domain structure than do the mammalian TLRs."

[Southack]

Getting muddled up discussing the differences between TLR and TLR4 ignores the bigger picture: Fish don’t have the endotoxic recognition and signaling that ancient Coral and Modern Humans share.

Functionality is missing from Fish. All Fish. No exceptions. That the functionality comes from TLR or TLR4 matters little or not at all. It’s still missing.

And that’s still DNA code-skipping.

[ahayes]

Discussing the differences between an ancestral protein and one of the proteins belonging to a family descended from it is not “getting muddled up”. This is a critical point.

Once again, you’re going to have to demonstrate to me that coral have the same exact same endotoxin recognition pathways that humans do. In fact no one has studied what happens when corals are exposed to endotoxins. You’re fond of making massive, completely groundless assumptions and stating them as rock-solid fact.

And once again, fish do have endotoxin recognition. TLR4 (which is also not the only receptor involved in endotoxin response) is present in fish, and fish respond to endotoxin. The question is whether TL4 functions exactly the same in fish as it does in humans, and it appears it does not. All of this is completely beside the point, though, since coral don’t have TLR4 at all.

And no, no skipping has occurred.

[Southack]

Skipping has occurred because there is functionality in Coral that is not in Fish but is in Humans. Fish are skipped.

Yes, it’s true that Fish have TLR4, but TLR4 in Fish doesn’t function as endotoxin recognition and signaling...that genetic code behaves differently...which leaves Fish without much in the way of endotoxic functionality and raises the question of whether geneticists have left much undiscovered (and perhaps even some of what has been discovered has been gotten wrong, too) in the way DNA functions.

Maybe it’s not even all about proteins. The code may be more complex.

Code. Code skipping species. Code functionality gotten wrong...the Evolutionists of Today will be the laughing stock of tomorrow.

[ahayes]

Skipping has occurred because there is functionality in Coral that is not in Fish but is in Humans. Fish are skipped.

Please provide evidence.

Yes, it’s true that Fish have TLR4

Yay!

but TLR4 in Fish doesn’t function as endotoxin recognition and signaling.

Incorrect. It may do so, the pathway is just not exactly the same. Now please demonstrate to me that humans and coral have the exact same endotoxin recognition pathways or forever hold your peace.

which leaves Fish without much in the way of endotoxic functionality

?? Please provide evidence.

You keep making this completely unfounded assertion that coral and humans have the same endotoxin recognition pathways. Put up or shut up--give me a source that analyzes corals and says the pathway is the same as in humans and different from in fish. It will be impossible to do so because TLR4 is not even present in corals, which have an ancestral TLR.

[Southack]

You set up your straw man request with the impossible (e.g. TLR4 isn’t in Coral) because you are desperately clinging to a faith-based religion of Evolution that is being inconveniently disproven by facts such as DNA code (its very existence, mathematically), DNA code skipping functionality from Coral, bypassing Fish (essentially no endotoxic recognition/signalling), yet is somehow in humans, as well as the entire data processing and storage of the DNA cellular engine.

You’re just fooling yourself and your fellow Darwinian fanatics. History won’t be kind to you.

[ahayes]

LOL! You're the one who is requiring TLR4 to be in coral when it is demonstrably not.

Put up or shut up--prove that humans and coral have the same endotoxin recognition pathways that are not shared by fish. You're saying so does not make it so any more than your saying so will cause you to sprout wings and go flying away.

[js1138]

placemarker

[ahayes]

Do you really enjoy watching people beat dead horses? ;-)

[js1138]

Fish and lurkers smell after three days?

One would think that cousins separated by 450 million years from a common ancestor might not share every gene found in the common ancestor.

[ahayes]

Yep. We got to that point in post 67, now I’m not sure what in heck is going on.

[ahayes]

Hey Southack! Remember this thread? I thought you and js1138 might want to take a look at it again since it refutes your “code-skipping” nonsense. I know it seems to have slipped your mind, but I’m sure you’ll back down once again after being reminded of the evidence.