[PatrickHenry]

"Sudden Origins" rears its head ...

[PatrickHenry]

Evolution Ping The List-O-Links

A conservative, pro-evolution science list, now with over 340 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.

[RightWhale]

Sudden Origins. SO.

Has a lot to recommend it, as an adjunct to evolution.

[Bigh4u2]

My question is, why would cells 'suddenly' change instead of a gradual change over time, as Darwin suggested?

Sudden climatic change?

[narby]

“The Sudden Origins theory, buttressed by modern cell biology, underscores the need to preserve the environment-not only to enhance life today, but to protect life generations from now.”

Only if the goal is to protect the current set of species. If the goal is to encurage species change, then environmental changes are a good thing.

This sentence is merely a bone to the environmental lobby, the authors no doubt hoping to get a few bucks thrown their way. Such raw pandering to the political left is why many conservatives don't trust science.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Were evolution driven randomly, there would be sudden emergences on all time scales. WTP?

[mlc9852]

"Rather, Schwartz argues, they have not been found because they don't exist, since evolution is not necessarily gradual but often sudden, dramatic expressions of change"

Someone on another thread today was trying to explain to me that evolution was gradual and now this guy says it's often sudden. And you wonder why people have a hard time accepting TOE.

[jennyp]

This guy's going to have a hard time getting his theory accepted if he calls it "sudden origins theory". But it may catch on in creationist circles. :-)

[trebb]

“You just can't do a quick fix on the environment to prevent extinction because the cause of the mutation occurred some time in the past, and you don't know what the cause of the stress was at that time,” Schwartz said.

That would seem to open gaps in the Natural Selection areas in evolution, rather than close them. If the changes are due to an ice age, and don't show up for a long time after, then it would have double the trouble of being viable.

The guy made a nice try, but as Casey learned, even a mighty swing can miss the ball.

[bvw]

Interesting theory. Has nothing to do with Darwin, however.

[connectthedots]

In that book, Schwartz hearkens back to earlier theories that suggest that the Darwinian model of evolution as continual and gradual adaptation to the environment glosses over gaps in the fossil record by assuming the intervening fossils simply have not been found yet. Rather, Schwartz argues, they have not been found because they don't exist, since evolution is not necessarily gradual but often sudden, dramatic expressions of change that began on the cellular level because of radical environmental stressors-like extreme heat, cold, or crowding-years earlier.

Of course they don't exist.

How can evolutionists claim their 'theory' is a fact when they can't even decide if change was gradual or sudden?

This article is nothing more than wild speculation presented in an attempt to overcome the obvious weaknesses of the many theories of evolution speculated about by others.

If anything, this article casts further doubt on evolution.

[Ragnar54]

This theory suggests that evolution requires stress. That would not seem to explain the Birds of Paradise. The only stress the males would feel would be due to rejection, and the rejected ones would not get to breed.

Perhaps a better explanation of the sudden appearance of changes is that we will never have more than a statistically small sample of fossils from any given era. We might not see an evolutionary change until an environmental change has given it an advantage and the "mutant" population explodes.

[b_sharp]

This sounds more like Punk Ek with a Hemi more than anything else.

I like the idea of mutations remaining recessive over time until drift makes them co-recessive at which point the trait gets expressed; but I don't think a saltation event even in this scenario would be likely to have a high survival index. I suspect this is more like what happens with segmentation where a simple mutation on a HOX gene can confuse enzyme production resulting in multiple segments. Or multiple wings for that matter.

Interesting when viewed together with gene duplication followed by a partial-gene mutation on the regulatory gene.

BTW, my mind is a toaster right now, so don't blame me if'n I'm incoherent.

[VadeRetro]

Other proteins act as chaperones, bringing molecules to their proper locations in the cell, and so on. In short, with that kind of protection from change, it is very difficult for mutations, of whatever kind, to gain a foothold. But extreme stress pushes cells beyond their capacity to produce protective proteins, and then mutation can occur.

Interesting point here. It is environmental stress which interferes with the genetic "proofreading" mechanism and allows the effective mutation rate to climb in times of deep crisis.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP - this defies credulity

[EternalVigilance]

Hmmm...let's see...

Can't find any intermediate species in the fossil record...not a one...so we'll just invent some 'giant leaps for mankind'.

And the evolutionists trudge on, oblivious to how silly they look...

[onedoug]

Nice try. No cigar.

[AndrewC]

Cell biologists know the answer: Cells don't like to change and don't do so easily. As Schwartz and Maresca explain: Cells in their ordinary states have suites of molecules- various kinds of proteins-whose jobs are to eliminate error that might get introduced and derail the functioning of their cell.

Warmed over Dr. James Shapiro. These guys are years behind the good doctor, who has earned no respect from the usual suspects here.

Dr. Shapiro

http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/21st_Cent_View_Evol.html

A 21st Century View of evolution

The conventional view is that genetic change comes from stochastic, accidental sources: radiation, chemical, or oxidative damage, chemical instabilities in the DNA, or from inevitable errors in the replication process. However, the fact is that DNA proofreading and repair systems are remarkably effective at removing these non-biological sources of mutation. For example, consider that the E. coli cell replicates its 4.6 megabase genome every 40 minutes. That is a replication frequency of almost 2 kHz. Yet, due to the action of error-recognition and correction systems in the replication machine and in the cell to catch mistakes in already-replicated DNA, the error rate is reduced below one mistake in every 1010 base-pairs duplicated, and a similar low value is observed in mammalian cells (32). That is less than one base change in every 2000 cells, certainly well below the mutation frequencies I have measured in E. coli of about four mutations per every 100 to 1000 cells.

In addition to proofreading systems, cells have a wide variety of repair systems to prevent or correct DNA damage from agents that include superoxides, alkylating chemicals and irradiation (33). Some of these repair systems encode mutator DNA polymerases which are clearly the source of DNA damage-induced mutations and also appear to be the source of so-called "spontaneous" mutations that appear in the absence of an obvious source of DNA damage (34). Results illustrating the effectiveness of cellular systems for genome repair and the essential role of enzymes in mutagenesis emphasize the importance of McClintock?s revolutionary discovery of internal systems generating genome, particularly when an organism has been challenged by a stress affecting genome function (Fig. 4; 5).

McClintock recognized that genetic change is a cellular process, subject to regulation, and is not dependent on stochastic accidents. The idea of internally-generated, biologically regulated mutation has profound impacts for thinking about the process of evolution. Darwin himself acknowledged this point in later editions of Origin of Species, where he wrote about natural "sports" or "...variations which seem to us in our ignorance to arise spontaneously. It appears that I formerly underrated the frequency and value of these latter forms of variation, as leading to permanent modifications of structure independently of natural selection." (6th edition, Chapter XV, p. 395).

[b_sharp]

From TalkOrigins
_________________________________________________________

Readers may recall a discussion about the book "Sudden Origins" by Jeffrey Schwartz. A short review was published recently in the July issue of Trends in Genetics ("Error and Evolution" by Ian J.H. Roberts). Here are some quotations from the review.

"Unfortunately, the author Jeffrey Schwartz, an accomplished paleoanthropologist, has failed to grasp in this book the fundamentals of of genetics or developmental biology; a handicap when trying to combine the recent advances in these fields with evolution."

(I love the way British writers express their criticism.)

"The explanation given that crossing over between homologous chromosomes causes the small discrepencies observed in the Mendelian 3:1 ratio in hybrid crosses is again incorrect. Crossing over makes no difference to this ratio." "Readers, especially undergraduates, should proceed with caution - otherwise this book might explain the sudden origin of errors emerging in examination answers to come."

Larry Moran
_________________________________________________________

[JCEccles]

After years of being completely stymied, Darwinists are panicking, suddenly finding "incontrovertible" evidence of evolution everywhere they look.

There will be 147 more similar claims before the month is out.

It won't work. ID is here to stay.

[tallhappy]

What's always humorous is how you and others take press releases and post them as news or even as significant withoout knowing anything about or reading the article.

This post would be like posting a press release from the DNC verbatim as if it were meaningful in any way.

The level of discourse is that of the old rich lady benefactors who get fed these type of press releases with watered-down, not even usually accurate science.

The New Anatomist. Wow.