Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution

by zagor 142 Replies latest jw friends

Midget-Sasquatch

Hi Kate,
You asked if there were any evidence of new genetic information being incorporated into an organism. While I couldn't access the review article Leolaia had posted, I'd imagine it would have given some nice examples. But lets reconsider the icefish. And if it was in that journal, I'll justify any rehashing by trying to give the Popular Science digest version of it ( To some's chagrin ).
You could say I'm not all that impressed with them. Their adaptations to the extremely cold waters about the antarctic are just tweaks to structures that were already there or even loss of others (e.g. larger gills, loss of scales and skin with much larger capillaries, larger hearts and blood volume, microtubules that are more stable at the colder temperatures, lack of hemoglobin, lack of myoglobin in their muscle, some of the icecycles even lack myoglobin in their hearts....them pale frigid bastards). But they do have a novel feature in that ice water running through their veins, an antifreeze protein, that came about in a sort of hackish but nifty improvised way. A portion of the genetic code for the anitfreeze protein matches a small portion of another unrelated gene of that fish....one having to do with a digestive enzyme. Looks like a small portion of that enzymes' gene was copied over into another location of the fish's genome and with some further changes to that code the antifreeze protein arose. You'd have the mutations being neutral in the beginning, and eventually if something beneficial arises, then selection will keep it in play so to speak.
Midget-Sasquatch

Kate,
I also wanted to quickly add in another little tidbit you might find interesting. I don't have any references right now but maybe you'd like to research this further. The stretch of genetic code responsible for the fish fin is very similar to the corresponding code for the vertebrate limb. Apparently, having additional repeats of a certain kind results in the formation of digits.
(Note to the experts: I'm not pretending in the above that thats all there is to it new limb structures appearing. Because I realize that just as important as what the code is "saying" , is how its expression is being regulated. That notwithstanding, small changes can potentially have some awesome implications)
TD

Kate,
On the species interbreeding, if it is the same species even though they are separated by time and land, they will still be the same species. The coyotes that hang out here don't know that they are not supposed to get my German Shepherd pregnant.
So do you think the Dromedary and the Llama are the same species or two related, but different species?
funkyderek

Apostate Kate:
My depth of research may not be as deep as a research scientist, and I don't remember details as well as others, does not mean that I am incapable of learning and coming to a conclusion. I came to my conclusions and it has nothing to do with the WT.
Perhaps. It also has nothing to do with the facts. Your conclusions seem remarkably similar to those who like the WT, for ideological reasons refuse to believe in evolution.
Many of you conclude it must be fact since it looks like it probably is.
No, many of us conclude it is almost certainly a fact because there is overwhelming evidence in favour of it.
I am not convinced. I do not see a natural world where oganisms are in constant fluctuation between species.
Why would you? Such a world is not predicted by any evolutionary model I know of.
I see a world full of individual plants and animals that when an error in their genetic code happens, most often you see a negative problem.
Which is predicted by the standard evolutionary model.
Common sense says that there would be transitional spcies everywhere!
What would count as a transitional species? If there was an animal with some mammalian and some reptilian features, would that count? What about an animal that can almost fly? Or a ring species? What exactly do you think you should expect to see?
The mighty colecanth once throught extinct and mutated into a trout by now was found alive and well.
It was thought extinct because the only fossils of it were very old. This belief was revised as new evidence became available. Something very like it is almost certainly ancestral to many modern fish.
Leolai the one link you posted was not in a language that I could understand without weeks of research into what each word means.
I think that's the heart of the problem. I knew you didn't really understand this stuff but I had no idea the extent of your ignorance. There are no words in that article that you wouldn't find in "Evolution for Dummies" or something similar. If you don't understand the terms used there, then you can't hope to grasp the underlying argument - which is exactly what we find.
Do you really think that a genetic scientist has not hoped to find evidence of evolution into another species in all these years of fruit fly research?
I'm quite sure a lot of them preferred not to find such a thing, as it makes interbreeding experiments very difficult. Nevertheless, new species have been observed as a result of these experiments. See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html and scroll down to section 5.3. Actually, don't bother. If you didn't understand the simplified Wiki article, you'll really struggle there.
Unless you're willing to do the research - which in this case should only involve some light to moderate reading with a dictionary to hand - you'll have to accept that those who have done the research, the experts in the field, the people who have studied this subject for decades, the people who perform the experiments and have observed things you claim have never been observed - that those people know more about it than you do and as such are exponentially more likely to be right.
Satanus

You gotta tread lightly around lt. Lately, he has an extra spring in his step, and an higher level of hormone
S treading lightly away
Apostate Kate

So do you think the Dromedary and the Llama are the same species or two related, but different species?
When travelling in Peru it was understood even by the natives that llamas were in the camel family. We'll find out how close when we know if the offspring is sterile or not.
Perhaps. It also has nothing to do with the facts. Your conclusions seem remarkably similar to those who like the WT, for ideological reasons refuse to believe in evolution.
That's because I'm not a bonehead who accepts information as fact that has not been proven as fact and that has nothing to do with the WT oh mighty Derek.
No, many of us conclude it is almost certainly a fact because there is overwhelming evidence in favour of it.
Yep, that's what we said when we were dubs...
Why would you? Such a world is not predicted by any evolutionary model I know of.
Well it should be doncha think! If evolution has so much evidence that it is a fact, then we should SEE the mechanics of it in everyday life wouldn't we? Instead we have evolutionists spouting off that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Entropy that is a universal law from the smallest rock to the largest galaxy somehow does not apply to evolution because the earth is a closed system. Meaning what? Meaning that because there is energy from the sun that somehow caused a single celled amoeba to mutate into a more comlex life form with DNA that spontaneously emerged out of nowhere? Sceintists admit now that the Miller experiment was NOT a model of the early earth, and it has not been able to be replicated.
What would count as a transitional species? If there was an animal with some mammalian and some reptilian features, would that count? What about an animal that can almost fly? Or a ring species? What exactly do you think you should expect to see?
I would expect to see a genetic link from fruit flys to...? Or from the completly mapped out human genome with a link from the first mapped human in a tribe from Africa, our oldest known living ancestors with a link to orangatangs or chimps geneticaly. But there is none. When I asked this question to an ex JW biochemist evolutionist he got angry and would not speak to me again. The DNA ends with the genetic Eve. And ends there. Why? Where's the link? We can map them now.
I think that's the heart of the problem. I knew you didn't really understand this stuff but I had no idea the extent of your ignorance. There are no words in that article that you wouldn't find in "Evolution for Dummies" or something similar. If you don't understand the terms used there, then you can't hope to grasp the underlying argument - which is exactly what we find.
Go suck a grape monkey man I have ADD and the type was too small in that format.
Why don't you try reading actual scientific research results instead of getting all your information from a website that is obviously biased like I do. Then again since you obviously are more evolved than I am you don't need to read outside the lines do you?
Caedes

Instead we have evolutionists spouting off that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Entropy that is a universal law from the smallest rock to the largest galaxy somehow does not apply to evolution because the earth is a closed system. Meaning what? Meaning that because there is energy from the sun that somehow caused a single celled amoeba to mutate into a more comlex life form with DNA that spontaneously emerged out of nowhere?
Apostate Kate,
If it's any help I did study thermodynamics and what the evolutionist's are telling you is correct.
Fundamentally what the second law is telling you is that you don't get something for nothing, If you want useful work out of a machine you have to put energy into it. The second law does allow for localised decreases in entropy. If you put a kettle on the stove it will boil water (a localised decrease in entropy) at a cost of the energy burnt to heat it. Our localised decrease in entropy (i.e. the earth's biosphere) is paid for by the burning of nuclear fuel in the sun. If the sun goes out we all die and entropy will take over.
As for your assertion about spontaneous appearance of dna, I would be very interested to hear your sources for that idea because I know that isn't in any text book I have ever read.
Are you suggesting that there is no genetic link between humans and apes? because we do share huge amounts of genetic material that point toward a shared ancester, exactly as predicted by evolutionary science.
Terry

Getting back to basics, are you aware that DNA is made up on merely four encoding molecules? Even though it is so simple, at the building block level, copying mistakes still happen. Even one single mistake can affect the whole package, as evidenced in your own condition.
As an analogy, copying mistakes have been made with the bible that have led to vastly different conclusions being arrived at when examining the whole corpus. The result can be a completely different denomination, and a war. Something similar can occur with genetics.
If enough offspring, containing the "mistake" survive, this can eventually reach a critical mass of a distinct sub-species.
Bear in mind that we have so much DNA in our bodies that it is more likely that there will be many errors, rather than just one, and that this is multiplied by every person and every child. The bundle of mistakes that you carry can be joined with the bundle of mistakes that your spouse carries, resulting in children with their own unique bundle of mistakes.
Just to add another factor into the pot - every time you are infected with a virus the virus alters part of the DNA within the cells that it infects, with a greater or lesser affect on your wellbeing, but you don't remain unchanged by the event. That is how a virus propagates. It causes your body to create more copies of itself, instead of resuming normal functions.
This repeats ad nauseum.
Science has described this in a theory, which it continues to test. The evidence thusfar shows that it is the most likely explanation. The evidence doesn't contradict this explanation, otherwise it would have been discarded long ago.
Little Toe, if only I could be as pithy, accurate and pointed as you are here.
Bravo!
Leolaia

Or from the completly mapped out human genome with a link from the first mapped human in a tribe from Africa, our oldest known living ancestors with a link to orangatangs or chimps geneticaly. But there is none. When I asked this question to an ex JW biochemist evolutionist he got angry and would not speak to me again. The DNA ends with the genetic Eve. And ends there. Why? Where's the link? We can map them now.
Well, of course the line ends with mitochondrial "Eve" because the samples were all taken from living Homo sapiens. There is a circularity in your assumption which you seem not to be aware of. If you haven't noticed, there are no other members of the Homo genus still living on this planet; they have all gone extinct. We're the only ones left, though for a time H. sapiens coexisted with H. erectus and H. neadertalensis (not to mention H. heidelbergensis and other possible groupings). Now if there really were Geico cavemen living among us, then sure, we could take their DNA and reconstruct an even earlier mitochondrial ancestor. Even the Australopithicus genus has gone extinct, so there are no surviving DNA samples from other species intermediate between us and our nearest living genetic relatives (e.g. chimpanzees, gorillas, and bonobos). There has been some recent work on recovering mtDNA from Neanderthal specimens, so there is some promise for adding to our knowledge of earlier genetic variation in Homo, but otherwise we have to settle for a phylogenetic comparison of humans with the great apes, and there has been some interesting work on this vein as I pointed out several days ago.
Apostate Kate

As for your assertion about spontaneous appearance of dna, I would be very interested to hear your sources for that idea because I know that isn't in any text book I have ever read.
That is my point. There is no evidence supporting that amino acids evolved into a single celled living organism into an invertebrate into a vertibrate into a mammal. That system of growth can not be replicated in any way, period. So for evolution to be a viable theory, we would have to expect that the DNA code spontaneously appeared.
Other scientist who proved that could not happen chemically then came up with the organisms from outer space theory which also can not be replicated or proven.
LT it has not been discarded because it is the only viable theory to science, otherwise they will have to look at the possibility of a Creator creating the DNA code for all living things that then replicated into like organisms with variences causing minor changes due to environmental impacts. That is not a theory many scientists are willing to accept.
Until there is scientific proof that a single celled organism can evolve into a more complex organism I will remain an unbeliever in evolution. If this is the means that all life came from, there must be evidence. There have been so many errors in scientific theory's in the history of science that it is ignorant to me to accept as fact an unproven theory.

Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution

Share this