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.
I have. I gave you the example of viruses. Others have shown how impossible it is to make a living cell at random.
More importantly though, you, donh and others who continue to insist that abiogenesis is possible continue to refuse to give even a hypothesis as to how such a thing could have occurred. So yes, abiogenesis is total bunk according to science. However, keep listening to the Art Bell show, I am sure that your beliefs, like just about any other crackpot beliefs out there, will be given due consideration on the show.
Microkernel design for the operating system and a plug-in API for the program.
You cannot get away from design. You are pushing it back a step (if what you say is true, which I doubt and would like to see you back it up, but I am sure you will not) but you are essentially verifying my statement. It takes design, not random chance to alter a program.
Okay, let's take WinAmp. First of all the program WinAmp was designed to take plugins. Second of all the plugins are designed to work with WinAmp. So again, you cannot change a program at random, you need design to do it. Oh and one more thing no program ever wrote itself at random.
You overlook the obvious every time. If you refuse to look up the simplest of facts for yourself, you will always be arguing from a position of ignorance and will have to continue your reliance on insults.
A great many people read these posts other than just the posters and they deserve some consideration and respite from your spamming. Additionally, pointing out your unrelenting obstinacy with respect to acknowledging even simplest of facts is a useful reminder to the readers why most people consider it a waste of time to address your posts at all.
int MyClass::buildDate(int hours)
int MyClass::buildDate(int hours, int days)
int MyClass::buildDate(int hours, int days, int weeks)
And polymorphism has to be used intelligently so in a way it is both seemingly random and intentional. You use which ever method you want to use and the compiler intelligently discerns which one you used during compilation. In the end, whoever tried to use software development as an example to support evolution or even to refute it must have been smoking crack because it can go half way on both sides.
To: Doctor Stochastic
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.
213 posted on 6/30/02 10:56 AM Eastern by gore3000
Perhaps you could be a bit more speicific about where exactly in the Bible the explanation of how God created man is. I looked and I can't find it. Specific stuff about how He came up with the notion of cells, what was the purpose of having us need to eat, anything along those lines. I don't understand why there is nothing in the Bible that was not known to those alive when it was written, zero. Nothing about electrons or the speed of light. Nothing about the Americas or Antarctica. Nothing about kangaroos or dinosaurs.
You're entitled to your opinion, I'm entitled to mine. Why is that so offensive to people like you?
I appologize for giving you the impression your opinion offends me. It does not.
Nice red herring.
Try starting in Genesis 1:1. Let me know when you've finished the chapter.
Amen! I've put the blues behind me and I've never felt cleaner!
Maybe I can be of help here. A "creationist" is one who believes in "Creationism." From www.dictionary.com, we find that "Creationism" is defined as:
The (false) belief that large, innovative software designs can be completely specified in advance and then painlessly magicked out of the void by the normal efforts of a team of normally talented programmers. In fact, experience has shown repeatedly that good designs arise only from evolutionary, exploratory interaction between one (or at most a small handful of) exceptionally able designer(s) and an active user population - and that the first try at a big new idea is always wrong. Unfortunately, because these truths don't fit the planning models beloved of management, they are generally ignored.
I hope this helps.
No, it is up to the person making an assertion to back up their statements, I do, so can you and Dr. Stochastic. Obviously he was lying so he cannot back it up so he sends his friends to make excuses for him. Sad.
We are in complete agreement on the above and in fact, just about everything you said, except your conclusion. However, what donh does not realize, and you did not mention is that the 'plug in' also has to be designed - to fit into the program, in fact, it is another program. It has to 'know' the program it is being plugged into an adjust its workings to it. You will note that all programs that take plug ins have long reference sheets as to how such programs need to be written. So of course, a modifying 'plug in' in programming and in the DNA code would need an intelligent designer itself.
I did not say there was for 'biology'. There is a Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine which clearly encompasses biology and which has been won for example by the destroyers of evolution, the discoverers of DNA. So as usual Patrick, you are indulging in lame semantic lies in an attempt to pull out your lying friend from the pit he dug for himself.
Yup, ignorance is bliss, that's how come you cannot and never could refute my statements. Stay in your little evolutionist hole, don't look at the world around you because hey, it may prove your stupid theory wrong.
So, I was right and you haven't looked it up. How sad, how assinine, how pitiful, how blue.
Science can say there is no known rational material explanation for an event, and no more.
I will not hang around for the almost inevitable name-calling and exchange of personal insults that insues once people are backed into a corner. It was a good win for truth, and I am going to cut and paste my exchanges on this thread into a doc. file for reference.
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