Getting a Leg Up on Land [Evolution]

Scientific American ^ | December 2005 issue | Jennifer A. Clack

[PatrickHenry]

Everyone be nice.

[PatrickHenry]

Evolution Ping The List-O-Links

A conservative, pro-evolution science list, now with over 320 names. See the list's explanation, then FReepmail to be added or dropped. To assist beginners: But it's "just a theory", Evo-Troll's Toolkit, and How to argue against a scientific theory.

[GarySpFc]

Here we seen another one of the millions of "Just so" fairy tales.

[muskah]

Have been pondering this evolution question for a while now. The tetrapods wern't the first to make this move. The arthropods beat us to it with as much or more diversity. So it has happened twice. Is the belief in a common aquatic vertebrate ancestor universally held, or could it have happened multiple times. Same question with inverts.

[sirchtruth]

In the almost four billion years since life on earth oozed into existence, evolution has generated some marvelous metamorphoses.

LOL! So, is this how agendized science is describing evo now?

The false profit must be very proud.

[Physicist]

Intermediate forms between fish and land tetrapods: another successful prediction of common descent (not to say Darwinism).

[Ken522]

What's readily apparent about this article is how the author presents "evolution" as a logical, simplistic, utterly natural progression in the development of species ... based on nothing more than wishful thinking; "Because that's the way things should be!"

[Physicist]

Here we seen another one of the millions of "Just so" fairy tales.

It is these transitional fossils that defeat your worldview, not the story. You're not fighting against the tale, but the tail.

[Rudder]

A little tale about Romer:

I attended a lecture at Berkeley given by Romer when he was in his 90's. The big Life Science's auditorium was packed. Romer hobbled up to the podium and began...

"When I last gave a lecture here, many, many years ago, I was greeted by an old friend and colleague (a colleague whose name escapes me). As we were walking to the auditorium on a beautiful summer's evening a huge tree limb from an old eucalyptus fell and killed him on the spot.

Romer stopped, took a drink of water, and began his lecture without any further comment about the incident.

It left us all scratching our heads...

[Physicist]

What's readily apparent about this article is how the author presents "evolution" as a logical, simplistic, utterly natural progression in the development of species ... based on nothing more than wishful thinking; "Because that's the way things should be!"

No, the wishfully thought, just-so story was the "mudskipper" hypothesis. People assumed that fish flopped onto land and later gained limbs, and thought "that's the way things should be". This view has now been dashed against the hard reality of the fossils. The history of life on Earth is discovered, not invented.

[AdmSmith]

You obviously read very fast, but died you really read the original article? you posted 11 minutes after the first post. ;-)

[AdmSmith]

From the article "For example, we know that tetrapods have lost all the bones that protect the gills in fish but that the genes that govern their formation are still present in mice, where they function differently. We have also ascertained that in the neck region, the biochemical pathways that preside over the development of limbs have broken down. Although biologists can easily induce extra limbs to grow on the flank of a tetrapod, this cannot be done in the neck. Something special happened when tetrapods first evolved a neck that prevented limbs from sprouting there."

Very interesting.

[wolfcreek]

Everyone be nice.

In other words, none of the usual eye-gouging and punching below the belt. FAT CHANCE!

[AdmSmith]

Freudian slip: but died you really read the original article? => but did you really read the original article? ;-)

[RoadTest]

How do you know that? There aren't any witnesses.

[ConsentofGoverned]

For those who consider Evolution theory as the only mechanism of the development of life, a few questions.

If DNA is information, and if information for life from the first cell to modern life evolved - is the information for all past life forms still in present DNA?

If not, why not?

How did information for structure of first life occur? that is evolution prior to life forms?

For me the simple reason "Evolution theory" is only part of the answer lies in the above questions.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[AdmSmith]

is the information for all past life forms still in present DNA?

No, usually a specific organism has DNA that is mutated, recombinated, incorporated from other organisms, and some is deleted frome earlier versions. Naturally, the majority of the DNA is conserved from the parents.

[doc30]

I read this one in the print version. I din't know it was on the website so soon. This is a really good article. It's fascinating that the more we study fossils and their geologic context, the more we learn about how evolution worked to produce what we see.

[ConsentofGoverned]

" has DNA that is mutated, recombinated, incorporated from other organisms, and some is deleted frome earlier versions"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>............
So in present day DNA, the DNA of first single cell life forms have long ago been deleted. The deletion mechanism only works in "evolved forms" as basic single cell forms still exist in rock, volcano plumes, that have never evolved over geologic time. (yet the 1st life form no longer exists?)This has always troubled me, that some life forms are immune to evolution forces over fantastic time periods. What does that imply?