You and I...we need to chat...
; )
--Frank Peretti
More wasted bandwidth...
Without doing empirical research using the scientific method, creationism cannot lay claim to any associations with science.
How much is Huckleberry paying you and dano1?
You and dano1 are part of Al Gore internet testing team, right?
“The underlying genetic mechanism of evolution is random mutation, and specifically mutation that is beneficial to life. Biology textbooks in theory present positive and negative mutations to students as though these were commonplace and roughly equal in number. However, these books fail to inform students that unequivocally positive mutations are unknown to genetics, since they have never been observed...” That’s interesting... Never thought of it like that before. It does seem odd.
There’s little question that most mutations are negative. That’s interesting... Never thought of it like that before. It does seem odd. There’s little question that most mutations are negative.
Thanks for the post!
It's a shame that we are moving into the year 2008 and the richest country in the world still fails to produce honest and accurate textbooks for its children.
Congressman Hunter on evolution:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1934888/posts
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1874862/posts
Governor Huckabee says humans are unique creations of God:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1934882/posts
America’s identity is rooted in the Creator:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1934903/posts
You and I...we need to chat...
; )
Well, sure, when you read outright lies like that from creationist sources, and make the mistake of believing them, you might end up questioning evolutionary biology. But then, people who read Al Gore's hysterical crap might begin to question the burning of fossil fuels. Shrug.
Real science from real science journals, however (not creationist propaganda pieces), has confirmed the validity of evolutionary biology a vast number of times in dozens of multiply independent cross-confirming ways, through literally millions of observations involving a vast number of experiments, field studies, and mountains of evidence, and evolutionary biology has passed huge numbers of potential falsification tests with flying colors. The creationists sort of "forget" to talk about that. Instead they just like to grossly misrepresent the truth on a regular basis.
The underlying genetic mechanism of evolution is random mutation,
...and replication and selection, among other interacting mechanisms...
and specifically mutation that is beneficial to life.
Actually, a lot of signficant evolutionary change is due to neutral mutations.
Biology textbooks in theory present positive and negative mutations to students as though these were commonplace and roughly equal in number.
No, they don't, actually. Nor is that necessary. Negative mutations can be overwhelmingly more common than positive mutations, and evoluation still proceeds, because the positive mutations get selected and accumulated over time, while the negative mutations get weeded out.
However, these books fail to inform students that unequivocally positive mutations are unknown to genetics, since they have never been observed...
...because that's a complete load of creationist crap. Textbooks aren't in the habit of repeating creationist canards. Perhaps the author would like to actually learn something on the topic for a change before he spouts more horse manure:
Directed evolution of biosynthetic pathways. Recruitment of cysteine thioethers for constructing the cell wall of Escherichia coli...and so on. How many more hundreds of papers would you like to see?Molecular evolution of an arsenate detoxification pathway by DNA shuffling
The evolutionary origin of complex features
Bacterial evolution and the cost of antibiotic resistance
Mild environmental stress elicits mutations affecting fitness in Chlamydomonas
The emergence and maintenance of diversity: insights from experimental bacterial populations
Pleiotropic effects of beneficial mutations in Escherichia coli
The Rate of Compensatory Mutation in the DNA Bacteriophage X174
Evolution and Information: The Nylon Bug
Spontaneous mutations in diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae: more beneficial than expected
Examples of Beneficial Mutations and Natural Selection
Spontaneous mutations in diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae: more beneficial than expected
Evolution and Information: The Nylon Bug
Punctuated evolution caused by selection of rare beneficial mutations.
PLEIOTROPIC EFFECTS OF BENEFICIAL MUTATIONS IN ESCHERICHIA COLI
The Distribution of Fitness Effects Among Beneficial Mutations
In humans there is one equivocally beneficial mutation, out of 4,000 devastating mutations: sickle cell anemia...
Yawn -- another lie. There's more than "one", Chuckles. See above, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Could this be a limited example of evolutionary progress? Not really. When the mutant sickle gene is latent (sickling isn't occurring), there is a survival advantage in areas with malaria. But whenever sickling occurs, in the heterozygote or the homozygote, it obstructs blood vessels and causes pain and death to organs... Sickling is always negative when it occurs, so it remains a very poor example of evolution, and in fact refutes it.
Oh, puh-lease... First, the Sickle Cell allele is interesting to biologists because unlike a lot of mutations, it's not just positive or negative, it's both very good and very bad, depending on circumstances (both genetic and environmental). As a result, its population dynamics have some interesting quirks, which is why it doesn't flush out of the population in short order like a purely negative allele would. Second, the author's an idiot for claiming that Sickle Cell anemia "refutes" or is a "poor example" of evolution, because in fact evolution perfectly explains why the Sickle Cell allele persists in certain populations -- the percentage of the SC allele in varous populations exactly matches the pattern predicted by natural selection, and is a confirmation of natural selection's action.
Evolution theorists have yet to demonstrate the unequivocally positive nature of a single mutation...
Ooh, another bald-faced lie (see above). Outright lies about science from a creationist source? Who'da thunk it?
Observational (i.e., scientific) evidence, as seen in medical research every day, leads one to be skeptical of the claims of evolutionary biology.
...only if one doesn't understand evolutionary biology very well, as this author apparently doesn't, given how many false claims about it he has made so far.
How does science explain that mythical first bacterial cell three billion years ago?
Like this:
Origin of Life and Cells
- +Good intro: Lies, Damned lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations
- +Purdue Study Breathes New Life Into Question Of How Life Began - self-replicating peptides
- + Ammonia From The Earth's Deep Oceans A Key Step In The Search For Life's Origins
- + Whitehead Study Supports Existence Of Ancient RNA World Helps Provide Insight Into Early Evolution Of Life
- + Yale Scientists Recreate Molecular Fossils Now Extinct That May Have Existed At The Beginning Of Life
- +A whole old world - new evidence for "The RNA World"
- The path from the RNA world.
- Relics from the RNA world.
- A supersymmetric model for the evolution of the genetic code.
- The hydrogen hypothesis for the first eukaryote.
- + Kick-start for life on earth
- The Beginnings of Life on Earth by Christian de Duve
- +Are the Odds Against the Origin of Life Too Great to Accept? : Addenda to Review of David Foster's The Philosophical Scientists by Richard C. Carrier.
On the RNA World: Evidence in Favor of an Early Ribonucleopeptide World
Inhibition of Ribozymes by Deoxyribonucleotides and the Origin of DNA
Genetic Code Origin: Are the Pathways of Type Glu-tRNAGln to Gln-tRNAGln Molecular Fossils or Not?
Ammonia From The Earth's Deep Oceans A Key Step In The Search For Life's Origins
A supersymmetric model for the evolution of the genetic code.
The hydrogen hypothesis for the first eukaryote.
On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells William Martin and Michael J. RussellAnd:Abstract: All life is organized as cells. Physical compartmentation from the environment and self-organization of self-contained redox reactions are the most conserved attributes of living things, hence inorganic matter with such attributes would be life’s most likely forebear. We propose that life evolved in structured iron monosulphide precipitates in a seepage site hydrothermal mound at a redox, pH and temperature gradient between sulphide-rich hydrothermal fluid and iron(II)-containing waters of the Hadean ocean floor. The naturally arising, three-dimensional compartmentation observed within fossilized seepage-site metal sulphide precipitates indicates that these inorganic compartments were the precursors of cell walls and membranes found in free-living prokaryotes. The known capability of FeS and NiS to catalyse the synthesis of the acetyl-methylsulphide from carbon monoxide and methylsulphide, constituents of hydrothermal fluid, indicates that pre-biotic syntheses occurred at the inner surfaces of these metal-sulphide-walled compartments, which furthermore restrained reacted products from diffusion into the ocean, providing sufficient concentrations of reactants to forge the transition from geochemistry to biochemistry. The chemistry of what is known as the RNA-world could have taken place within these naturally forming, catalyticwalled compartments to give rise to replicating systems. Sufficient concentrations of precursors to support replication would have been synthesized in situ geochemically and biogeochemically, with FeS (and NiS) centres playing the central catalytic role. The universal ancestor we infer was not a free-living cell, but rather was confined to the naturally chemiosmotic, FeS compartments within which the synthesis of its constituents occurred. The first free-living cells are suggested to have been eubacterial and archaebacterial chemoautotrophs that emerged more than 3.8 Gyr ago from their inorganic confines. We propose that the emergence of these prokaryotic lineages from inorganic confines occurred independently, facilitated by the independent origins of membrane-lipid biosynthesis: isoprenoid ether membranes in the archaebacterial and fatty acid ester membranes in the eubacterial lineage. The eukaryotes, all of which are ancestrally heterotrophs and possess eubacterial lipids, are suggested to have arisen ca. 2 Gyr ago through symbiosis involving an autotrophic archaebacterial host and a heterotrophic eubacterial symbiont, the common ancestor of mitochondria and hydrogenosomes. The attributes shared by all prokaryotes are viewed as inheritances from their confined universal ancestor. The attributes that distinguish eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet are uniform within the groups, are viewed as relics of their phase of differentiation after divergence from the non-free-living universal ancestor and before the origin of the free-living chemoautotrophic lifestyle. The attributes shared by eukaryotes with eubacteria and archaebacteria, respectively, are viewed as inheritances via symbiosis. The attributes unique to eukaryotes are viewed as inventions specific to their lineage. The origin of the eukaryotic endomembrane system and nuclear membrane are suggested to be the fortuitous result of the expression of genes for eubacterial membrane lipid synthesis by an archaebacterial genetic apparatus in a compartment that was not fully prepared to accommodate such compounds, resulting in vesicles of eubacterial lipids that accumulated in the cytosol around their site of synthesis. Under these premises, the most ancient divide in the living world is that between eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet the steepest evolutionary grade is that between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
The emergence of life from iron monosulphide bubbles at a submarine hydrothermal redox and pH front M. J. RUSSELL & A. J. HALL: Department of Geology and Applied Geology, University of GlasgowAnd:Abstract: Here we argue that life emerged on Earth from a redox and pH front at c. 4.2 Ga. This front occurred where hot (c. 150)C), extremely reduced, alkaline, bisulphide-bearing, submarine seepage waters interfaced with the acid, warm (c. 90)C), iron-bearing Hadean ocean. The low pH of the ocean was imparted by the ten bars of CO2 considered to dominate the Hadean atmosphere/hydrosphere. Disequilibrium between the two solutions was maintained by the spontaneous precipitation of a colloidal FeS membrane. Iron monosulphide bubbles comprising this membrane were inflated by the hydrothermal solution upon sulphide mounds at the seepage sites. Our hypothesis is that the FeS membrane, laced with nickel, acted as a semipermeable catalytic boundary between the two fluids, encouraging synthesis of organic anions by hydrogenation and carboxylation of hydrothermal organic primers. The ocean provided carbonate, phosphate, iron, nickel and protons; the hydrothermal solution was the source of ammonia, acetate, HS", H2 and tungsten, as well as minor concentrations of organic sulphides and perhaps cyanide and acetaldehyde. The mean redox potential (ÄEh) across the membrane, with the energy to drive synthesis, would have approximated to 300 millivolts. The generation of organic anions would have led to an increase in osmotic pressure within the FeS bubbles. Thus osmotic pressure could take over from hydraulic pressure as the driving force for distension, budding and reproduction of the bubbles. Condensation of the organic molecules to polymers, particularly organic sulphides, was driven by pyrophosphate hydrolysis. Regeneration of pyrophosphate from the monophosphate in the membrane was facilitated by protons contributed from the Hadean ocean. This was the first use by a metabolizing system of protonmotive force (driven by natural ÄpH) which also would have amounted to c. 300 millivolts. Protonmotive force is the universal energy transduction mechanism of life. Taken together with the redox potential across the membrane, the total electrochemical and chemical energy available for protometabolism amounted to a continuous supply at more than half a volt. The role of the iron sulphide membrane in keeping the two solutions separated was appropriated by the newly synthesized organic sulphide polymers. This organic take-over of the membrane material led to the miniaturization of the metabolizing system. Information systems to govern replication could have developed penecontemporaneously in this same milieu. But iron, sulphur and phosphate, inorganic components of earliest life, continued to be involved in metabolism.
The Path from the RNA World Anthony M. Poole, Daniel C. Jeffares, David Penny: Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Massey UniversityThat's what real science looks like -- the astute reader will note how little hint of this kind of detail and research the anti-science creationist screeds impart.Abstract: We describe a sequential (step by step) Darwinian model for the evolution of life from the late stages of the RNA world through to the emergence of eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The starting point is our model, derived from current RNA activity, of the RNA world just prior to the advent of genetically-encoded protein synthesis. By focusing on the function of the protoribosome we develop a plausible model for the evolution of a protein-synthesizing ribosome from a high-fidelity RNA polymerase that incorporated triplets of oligonucleotides. With the standard assumption that during the evolution of enzymatic activity, catalysis is transferred from RNA M RNP M protein, the first proteins in the ``breakthrough organism'' (the first to have encoded protein synthesis) would be nonspecific chaperone-like proteins rather than catalytic. Moreover, because some RNA molecules that pre-date protein synthesis under this model now occur as introns in some of the very earliest proteins, the model predicts these particular introns are older than the exons surrounding them, the ``introns-first'' theory. Many features of the model for the genome organization in the final RNA world ribo-organism are more prevalent in the eukaryotic genome and we suggest that the prokaryotic genome organization (a single, circular genome with one center of replication) was derived from a ``eukaryotic-like'' genome organization (a fragmented linear genome with multiple centers of replication). The steps from the proposed ribo-organism RNA genome M eukaryotic-like DNA genome M prokaryotic-like DNA genome are all relatively straightforward, whereas the transition prokaryotic-like genome M eukaryotic-like genome appears impossible under a Darwinian mechanism of evolution, given the assumption of the transition RNA M RNP M protein. A likely molecular mechanism, ``plasmid transfer,'' is available for the origin of prokaryotic-type genomes from an eukaryotic-like architecture. Under this model prokaryotes are considered specialized and derived with reduced dependence on ssRNA biochemistry. A functional explanation is that prokaryote ancestors underwent selection for thermophily (high temperature) and/or for rapid reproduction (r selection) at least once in their history.
On the RNA World: Evidence in Favor of an Early Ribonucleopeptide World
Inhibition of Ribozymes by Deoxyribonucleotides and the Origin of DNA
Genetic Code Origin: Are the Pathways of Type Glu-tRNAGln to Gln-tRNAGln Molecular Fossils or Not?
Johnston WK, Unrau PJ, Lawrence MS, Glasner ME, Bartel DP.RNA-catalyzed RNA polymerization: accurate and general RNA-templated primer extension. Science. 2001 May 18;292(5520):1319-25.
Ferris JP. (1999 Jun). Prebiotic synthesis on minerals: bridging the prebiotic and RNA worlds. Biol Bull , 196, 311-4.
Levy M, and Miller SL. (1999 Jun). The prebiotic synthesis of modified purines and their potential role in the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 48, 631-7.
Unrau PJ, and Bartel DP. (1998 Sep 17). RNA-catalysed nucleotide synthesis [see comments] Nature , 395, 260-3.
Roth A, and Breaker RR. (1998 May 26). An amino acid as a cofactor for a catalytic polynucleotide [In Process Citation] Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A , 95, 6027-31.
Jeffares DC, Poole AM, and Penny D. (1998 Jan). Relics from the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 46, 18-36.
Poole AM, Jeffares DC, and Penny D. (1998 Jan). The path from the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 46, 1-17.
Wiegand TW, Janssen RC, and Eaton BE. (1997 Sep). Selection of RNA amide synthases. Chem Biol , 4, 675-83.
Di Giulio M. (1997 Dec). On the RNA world: evidence in favor of an early ribonucleopeptide world. J Mol Evol , 45, 571-8.
Hager AJ, and Szostak JW. (1997 Aug). Isolation of novel ribozymes that ligate AMP-activated RNA substrates. Chem Biol , 4, 607-17.
James KD, and Ellington AD. (1997 Aug). Surprising fidelity of template-directed chemical ligation of oligonucleotides [In Process Citation] Chem Biol , 4, 595-605.
Lohse PA, and Szostak JW. (1996 May 30). Ribozyme-catalysed amino-acid transfer reactions. Nature , 381, 442-4.
Lazcano A, and Miller SL. (1996 Jun 14). The origin and early evolution of life: prebiotic chemistry, the pre- RNA world, and time. Cell , 85, 793-8.
Ertem G, and Ferris JP. (1996 Jan 18). Synthesis of RNA oligomers on heterogeneous templates. Nature , 379, 238-40.
Robertson MP, and Miller SL. (1995 May 5). Prebiotic synthesis of 5-substituted uracils: a bridge between the RNA world and the DNA-protein world [see comments] Science , 268, 702-5.
Robertson MP, and Miller SL. (1995 Jun 29). An efficient prebiotic synthesis of cytosine and uracil [published erratum appears in Nature 1995 Sep 21;377(6546):257] Nature , 375, 772-4.
Breaker RR, and Joyce GF. (1995 Jun). Self-incorporation of coenzymes by ribozymes. J Mol Evol , 40, 551-8.
James KD, and Ellington AD. (1995 Dec). The search for missing links between self-replicating nucleic acids and the RNA world. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 25, 515-30.
Bohler C, Nielsen PE, and Orgel LE. (1995 Aug 17). Template switching between PNA and RNA oligonucleotides [see comments] Nature , 376, 578-81.
Connell GJ, and Christian EL. (1993 Dec). Utilization of cofactors expands metabolism in a new RNA world. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 23, 291-7.
Nielsen PE. (1993 Dec). Peptide nucleic acid (PNA): a model structure for the primordial genetic material? Orig Life Evol Biosph , 23, 323-7.
Lahav N. (1991 Aug 21). Prebiotic co-evolution of self-replication and translation or RNA world? J Theor Biol , 151, 531-9.
Ekland EH, Szostak JW, and Bartel DP. (1995 Jul 21). Structurally complex and highly active RNA ligases derived from random RNA sequences. Science , 269, 364-70.
Did it transform itself--by random mutations in the DNA--into all the "wondrous profusion" of life forms (one million species), and all their wondrous functional organs, over an imaginary time period?
Eventually, yes. That's what all the available evidence indicates.
The evidence says no.
Wow, *another* bald-faced lie from a creationist attacking science. And without a shred of support. What a surprise. Not.
Here's what the evidence actually says with regard to the history of life on Earth -- it's funny that this author seems entirely ignorant of it, but then I've come to expect that from the anti-evolution conspiracy kooks.
"One of evolution's best-kept secrets is that mutations don't work. They're not beneficial... One of the best ways to really combat the fortress of Darwinism is to allow people to wonder about it, to acquaint them with the controversy so that they know there is one." --Frank Peretti
Uh huh... Add Peretti to the list of folks who are either too ignorant to be aware of, or too dishonest not to lie about, the kind of research I've linked above, which is just the tiniest tip of the vast iceberg of real scientific findings on how evolution works in the real world (not the imaginary world the anti-evolution folks inhabit because they don't want to face what the reality actually is, so they just make crap up about how they think it "must" be...).
I've read vast amounts of material from all sides on this topic, including hundreds of textbooks and thousands of research papers, not to mention dozens of books by the anti-evolution folks and endless numbers of editorials like the one above, as well as done more experiments and mathematical analyses of evolutionary processes than I can count, and after over thirty years studying this topic from all sides, it's impossible to escape the conclusion that evolutionary biology is an overwhelmingly solidly grounded field of science, while the anti-evolution folks are entirely without a leg to stand on. (And yes, True Believers in "ID", I've read Behe's books too -- Behe falls on his face when he tries to construct an argument, and can't even get the easy stuff right.) Once you take away the anti-evolutionists' fallacies, false claims born of ignorance, hand-waving appeals to emotion, and outright lies, all they have left is their outrage over the fact that the universe provides overwhelming evidence that it doesn't work the way they'd like to think it does, so they want to shoot the messengers (the real scientists).
Bullshit creationist strawman. Evolution is mutation PLUS natural selection---not mutation alone. Mutation is "value neutral" with some harmful and some beneficial. Those with the harmful mutations DIE SOONER and have less offspring and those with beneficial mutations LIVE LONGER and have more offspring.
hey everyone...fortunately for all of us, we do have at our disposal a genetics FRexpert to help clear all of this up!
Yessiree!
Our own “Alter Kaker” has stated; “Beneficial mutations are a dime a dozen”!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1920670/posts?page=119#119
So maybe he’ll pop into this thread and educate us all on all of those beneficial mutations that turned pond scum into fish, fish into rodents, rodents into whatever, until those “dime-a-dozen” beneficial mutation finally turned chimps into humans that believe in the theory of evolution!
So...Alter Kaker...go ahead...give ‘em hell!
bmflr
.
.
.
Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts