Posted on 06/17/2002 4:40:34 PM PDT by Nebullis
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Life did not begin with one primordial cell. Instead, there were initially at least three simple types of loosely constructed cellular organizations. They swam in a pool of genes, evolving in a communal way that aided one another in bootstrapping into the three distinct types of cells by sharing their evolutionary inventions.
The driving force in evolving cellular life on Earth, says Carl Woese, a microbiologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been horizontal gene transfer, in which the acquisition of alien cellular components, including genes and proteins, work to promote the evolution of recipient cellular entities.
Woese presents his theory of cellular evolution, which challenges long-held traditions and beliefs of biologists, in the June 18 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Cellular evolution, he argues, began in a communal environment in which the loosely organized cells took shape through extensive horizontal gene transfer. Such a transfer previously had been recognized as having a minor role in evolution, but the arrival of microbial genomics, Woese says, is shedding a more accurate light. Horizontal gene transfer, he argues, has the capacity to rework entire genomes. With simple primitive entities this process can "completely erase an organismal genealogical trace."
His theory challenges the longstanding Darwinian assumption known as the Doctrine of Common Descent – that all life on Earth has descended from one original primordial form.
"We cannot expect to explain cellular evolution if we stay locked in the classical Darwinian mode of thinking," Woese said. "The time has come for biology to go beyond the Doctrine of Common Descent."
"Neither it nor any variation of it can capture the tenor, the dynamic, the essence of the evolutionary process that spawned cellular organization," Woese wrote in his paper.
Going against traditional thinking is not new to Woese, a recipient of the National Medal of Science (2000), and holder of the Stanley O. Ikenberry Endowed Chair at Illinois.
In the late 1970s Woese identified the Archaea, a group of microorganisms that thrive primarily in extremely harsh environments, as a separate life form from the planet’s two long-accepted lines – the typical bacteria and the eukaryotes (creatures like animals, plants, fungi and certain unicellular organisms, whose cells have a visible nucleus). His discovery eventually led to a revision of biology books around the world.
The three primary divisions of life now comprise the familiar bacteria and eukaryotes, along with the Archaea. Woese argues that these three life forms evolved separately but exchanged genes, which he refers to as inventions, along the way. He rejects the widely held notion that endosymbiosis (which led to chloroplasts and mitochondria) was the driving force in the evolution of the eukaryotic cell itself or that it was a determining factor in cellular evolution, because that approach assumes a beginning with fully evolved cells.
His theory follows years of analysis of the Archaea and a comparison with bacterial and eukaryote cell lines.
"The individual cell designs that evolved in this way are nevertheless fundamentally distinct, because the initial conditions in each case are somewhat different," Woese wrote in his introduction. "As a cell design becomes more complex and interconnected a critical point is reached where a more integrated cellular organization emerges, and vertically generated novelty can and does assume greater importance."
Woese calls this critical point in a cell’s evolutionary course the Darwinian Threshold, a time when a genealogical trail, or the origin of a species, begins. From this point forward, only relatively minor changes can occur in the evolution of the organization of a given type of cell.
To understand cellular evolution, one must go back beyond the Darwinian Threshold, Woese said.
His argument is built around evidence "from the three main cellular information processing systems" – translation, transcription and replication – and he suggests that cellular evolution progressed in that order, with translation leading the way.
The pivotal development in the evolution of modern protein-based cells, Woese said, was the invention of symbolic representation on the molecular level – that is, the capacity to "translate" nucleic acid sequence into amino acid sequence.
Human language is another example of the evolutionary potential of symbolic representation, he argues. "It has set Homo sapiens entirely apart from its (otherwise very close) primitive relatives, and it is bringing forth a new level of biological organization," Woese wrote.
The advent of translation, he said, caused various archaic nucleic-based entities to begin changing into proteinaceous ones, emerging as forerunners of modern cells as genes and other individual components were exchanged among them. The three modern types of cellular organization represent a mosaic of relationships: In some ways one pair of them will appear highly similar; in others a different pair will.
This, Woese said, is exactly what would be expected had they individually begun as distinct entities, but during their subsequent evolutions they had engaged in genetic cross-talk – they had indulged in a commerce of genes.
Pig poop. There are lots of them, and I have been at pains on this, and many other threads to adumbrate a few of them. And none that I know of has as yet been rendered mute for all time by current experiments.
Oh, you mean like working oil wells, gold mines and gas fields? The designer corn of Green Revolution fame? Biologically controlled crop pests? That sort of useless stuff?
Or do you mean in the same manner that paleo-astronomy produces nothing worthwhile?
If you want to understand the current state of science, read current referreed papers in current technical journals. There are still school textbooks around in rural villages that say the continents are fixed on the surface of the planet. The so-called Cell Theory, taken, as you have probably incorrectly done, as an abiogesis theory, is incompatible with the most recent revision of the Tree of Life. You tell me which of these theories have to give way.
Science is not a perfect crystalline palace, it is a work in progress, and I am not to be held accountable for every scraped shin that the participants encounter.
Stop it, go home and get some sleep. Than submit your proof that science has closed the books on abiogensis. Your virus example is the most preposterous in a long line of preposterous examples. Science barely knows anything about this subject, and here you are claiming all the work is done and we can all go home. Grow up. Viruses are not self-reproducing without the existence of DNA, which you are now asking me to demonstrate they produce. You cannot bootstrap yourself into existence--no material thing can. Viruses are quite obviously a different story, not the taproot of life.
I doubt it, except as antiques. Alfred Wegener developed the theory of continental drift in the late 1800's and early 1900's. By the 1960's, the theory was in ascendency. It and the theory of Ocean Floor Spreading combined to become the major components of the theory of Plate Tectonics. I am forty and I have never been taught anything else.
The so-called Cell Theory, taken, as you have probably incorrectly done, as an abiogesis theory, is incompatible with the most recent revision of the Tree of Life. You tell me which of these theories have to give way.
Bzzzzzz. Wrong answer. I am taking it exactly as it was meant to be taken. The cell theory was specifically developed in response to the idea of "Spontaneous Generation". This was a type of abiogenesis which maintained that maggots formed from rotting meat. In a series of experiments, it was shown that if flies were denied access to the meat, no maggots developed. The Cell Theory was then advanced as a replacement for "Spontaneous Generation"- again a type of abiogenesis.
This was before people understood how complicated even the simplest cell was, so it was understandable how they might think that cells could arise spontaneously. Eveything we have learned in the past 300 years though, confirms the Cell Theory. As the centuries rolled on, we discovered that cells were always more complex that we thought the decade before. Only in the past 20 years or so have we put it all together, and there are still some significant details to flush out.
So the cell theory WAS meant to be a statement on abiogenesis. It WAS claiming that abiogenesis is incorrect, and the cell theory has been confirmed in test after test for three centuries (macroevolution should have half so good a track record). Not only that, but everything we have learned about cells during those centuries adds to our understanding of their great complexity- making abiogenesis less and less likely.
As far as the "Tree of Life" idea, the article that starts this post is a significant rejection of that concept. The Tree of Life data could also be explained by Common Designer- except that such explanations are ruled out in advance.
But this is a stupid argument in an even more fundamental way. Suppose you are correct, and that immaterial abiogenesis is given, by unambiguous divine relevation to be the correct explanation. Will science care? No. Science will want to ask: "ok, so, exactly how did God do it? Did it happen pop-bang all at once? Are there traces of material phenomenon that grew at a rapid rate into the first cellular? How long did that take? ...... Please explain how this would be different from what science does now?
Congratulations. Our viewpoints have converged. It WON'T be different. That has been my position throughout this thread.
You are completely making my argument for me. You, who a few posts ago were ready to man the cannons to keep a theistic worldview from infecting science now agree that it will not make a difference in the way science is conducted. Trial and error experiment will continue as the search for the Lawgiver's laws goes on. Everytime there is a rational, testable naturalistic hypothesis it will still be tested. The only thing that will change once Theism rules science (again, as it has for centuries) is the philosophy, NOT the methodology.
DO YOU FEEL SAFER YET?????
This is a fruitless and unresolvable debate bacause it is a pitched battle between non-opponents, and I would prefer to move on at this point.
I attempted to give you the last word twenty posts ago, and you kept pinging me. However, I too am willing to let the matter rest. We have exchanged much information. I feel is time to stop fencing with one another, and instead reflect on what we have learned.
There is no proof needed. No scientist would even bother with that nonsense. Just once in a while someone writes some stuff on it to sell some books to atheists but no one buys that nonsense.
Your virus example is the most preposterous in a long line of preposterous examples. Science barely knows anything about this subject, and here you are claiming all the work is done and we can all go home.
Science knows nothing about viruses? How ridiculous can you be? The US government is spending some 5 billion a year on just the AIDS virus - and that's just the US Government, on one virus. Then there is what the US government spends on other viruses, what universities spend on virus research, what private companies looking for cures spend on research, what private foundations and charitable foundations spend on viruse research to cure various illneses - and that is just in the US. And that has been going on to a lesser degree for decades. So don't tell me we do not know anything about viruses. The E. Coli virus is one of the most researched things out there, it has been tested from top to bottom. So don't give me that garbage. Abiogenesis has been shown to be totally impossible by science.
Please cite proof for this wildly elliptical claim.
Microkernel design for the operating system and a plug-in API for the program.
Yes you can change a program at random. Programs that implement a plugin system can be dynamically changed by the plugins to respond to different I/O and events differently in ways the original software developers didn't forsee. Take a look at Winamp.
As for your asinine comment that evolutionary theory is stupid, I have one thing to say about that, how the hell can you take someone who claims the Earth is only 6000 years old seriously? There are human civilizations that go back way beyond that for God's sake! What next, do we teach kids in Physics class that the only reason why objects hold together is because they are being observed by a sentient being and thus the universe is held together because God sees everything? That's one religious-philosophical theory that was tried in order to attack various concepts in Physics. No kids, atomic bonds and gravity don't keep things together, God's watching you keeps you from falling apart!
Don't you ever post anything but insults? Dr. Stochastic made an assertion, he has to back it up. I realize that asking a question of an evo is an insult, because I mean how would anyone dare to ask you folk to back anything up? After all how can you folk be expected to back anything up when for 150 years you have been claiming that evolution is scientifically true and you still cannot come up with a single example of a species that has evolved.
Perhaps since you are so smart you wish to back up what Dr. Stochastic said with facts instead of insults? I doubt it though, you are too lame to do anything but insult.
You are trying to say that materialism is true because you deny that any other explanation is possible. That is a false argument. Science knows that there are things outside its purview which nevertheless do indeed exist, such things as conscience, art, love, etc. So just because something cannot be examined by science does not mean that it does not exist. Also, scince is quite able to determine if something is not materially possible, it can tell us for example that if you step off a 100 foot building you will definitely not fall upwards. It tells us the same thing about abiogenesis - it could not have happened. That is why you (nor anyone) can give even a scientifically viable explanation of how abiogenesis could have happened.
In other words you were lying. No one has gotten a Nobel Prize for any work on evolution.
As usual with evolutionists, they are never willing to back up their claims because they are lying.
...just like thousands of observations over thousands of years did not reveal that continents drift over the surface of the planet.
What a wonderful proof of abiogenesis! Not knowing is knowing! No proof is proof! Are you going to tell us next that true is false? You cannot so easily refute though my example of viruses. There you have 99% of what it takes to make a self-replicating organism and nothing we have done to the darned things has made one of them transform themselves into a self-replicating organism. In fact, no experiment has ever led any organism to transform itself into another more complex one. To call either evolution or abiogenesis science is an abomination.
Another example of evolutionist garbage. The above was known to be impossible long before Darwin. It was not a discovery of Darwin. In fact Darwin did not discover anything. Just about everything he postulated in his Origins has been disproven - some of it by himself in subsequent works! For example, he realized that natural selection was not an answer to all the variability in nature so he added sexual selection as another 'cause' for variability.
Nevertheless, your statement verifies what I said, there are objective truths out there. Objective truths that science has discovered. More importantly for our discussion, there are objective proofs of what it takes for a living thing to be able to arise, those proofs show that abiogenesis is impossible. You cannot through random chance create a DNA set of at least a half million DNA base pairs, perfectly coded to perform the functions required by a living organism. That is an utter impossibility and anyone who is not blinded by their atheistic faith recognizes that.
I have asked you before but you continue to refuse to answer - what is the scientific theory for abiogenesis? You keep claiming there is one but you refuse to tell us what the theory is? Is this a deep secret? Don't you want people to know what it is?
Garbage. RNA cannot replicate. Viruses which are even closer to living things than RNA cannot replicate. In addition to which you would still need a tremendously long, perfectly coded series of RNA's to create a living organism of at least a half a million. So the RNA world is just as impossible and an atheistic pipe dream. Also, I note that you do not give any quotes or any sources for how he supposedly says such a thing could have happened. Let's see them.
Let's see them. Let's see the theories of abiogenesis. Let's see one that can stand up to what we know about life. I have asked you to give this many times, on this thread and others, and you keep avoiding giving the theory of how life could have begun in a materialistic way. Time to back up your statements.
Oh, you mean like working oil wells, gold mines and gas fields? The designer corn of Green Revolution fame? Biologically controlled crop pests? That sort of useless stuff?
Like Clinton, evolutionists claim that everything that every discovery after Darwin was due to evolution. The above is total nonsense and has nothing to do with evolutionary theory. And I challenge you to show how the above were predicted by evolutionary theory. In fact genetics, DNA, and the complexity of the genome all disprove evolution. Just about every discovery in biology since Darwin has disproved evolution - even the fossils!
I have, and the virus example is tremendous proof of it. Another proof is that in spite of numerous requests, you are unwilling and unable to even give a hypothesis for abiogenesis. Let's see you back up your statements.
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