Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution

by zagor 142 Replies latest jw friends

  • funkyderek
    funkyderek

    Apostate Kate:

    This is not evidence of evolution at all

    Yes it is. It's clear, unequivocal evidence of evolution. You could hardly ask for better evidence.

    but adaptation, there is an enormous difference between the two.

    Not really.

    Adaptation occues naturally in nature and can be seen in everyday life.

    We can see that species are adapted to their environment but we rarely see something actually adapting. Such changes are usually only noticeable over many generations.

    My chihuahua is an adaptation of a wolf.

    True, but one artificially rather than naturally selected

    The DNA for lactose tolerance or intollerance is in the human body and can be turned off or on,

    Not exactly. There are genes for producing the enzyme lactase, which in many populations "switches off" after a certain age. It was already known that Europeans have a particular mutation that causes it to stay switched on. This latest study has shown that there are at least three other mutations which have had the same effect for the same reasons. The effect is the same but the route taken to get there was different. This is not just a case of a gene being switched on or off. This is evolution by natural selection.

    but then gene is there. Missing genes cause often fatal flaws such as Downs Syndrome, Marfans, Cystic Fibrosis, cancers, Sickel Cell Anemia, there have been thousands mapped.

    None of those conditions is caused by "missing genes".

    Every species has DNA code that is as if written in stone.

    No, it's not like it's written in stone. Not at all. It's more like a code written in sugar.

    Adaptations can take place but there is not nor ever has been any evidence that my chihuahua could ever adapt into an entire other species.

    I don't think anyone has ever suggested that an individual could become a new species, but speciation of populations is an observed fact.

    Mutations show no gain in genetic information.

    Not true at all.

    Genetic information can be "activated" for this lactose intolerance, but again, no new genetic material was found.

    Again not true.

    I'm not a higly intelligent person

    You don't need to be. Someone of average intelligence should be able to understand this. Something other than lack of intelligence is responsible for you not getting it.

    but I stand behind the Second Law of Thermodyanics and Entropy.

    As do I. Any theory that contradicts the second law of thermodynamics is flat-out wrong. No ifs, no buts.

    No one yet has been able to apply the evolution theory, (not adaptation) to those laws of physics in a way that makes sense.

    To you, perhaps. But to the vast majority of the educated world there's absolutely no contradiction. Now they could - biologists, geologists, paleontologists, chemists, physicists - all be wrong, but if they are they are hugely, massively and unforgivably wrong. All of them. So either they, the cognoscenti, the professional scientists, the great minds of our generation, don't understand a very simple fundamental piece of science, or you don't.

    Having a genetic disease caused me to research this in depth and I keep an open mind.

    You don't seem to have done much research on this at all. You don't even seem to have read the original article very thoroughly. And your mind doesn't seem to be open. Despite the overwhelming evidence for evolution, you choose not to believe in it, even when you read (or at least skim) an article that provides strong evidence for a particular case of natural selection.

  • Satanus
    Satanus

    Tall penguin

    The immigration of 25,000 Ethiopians to Israel three years ago provided more than a boost to the Jewish population. It set the stage for Israeli doctors to say a "natural immunity" to AIDS exists.

    In analyzing the cases of Ethiopians who immigrated to Israel, Dr. Zvi Bentwich found 50 percent had been exposed to the HIV virus but tested negative for AIDS. It appears their bodies developed an immunity to the disease.

    When Ethiopians first began arriving in Israel, 90 percent of them were infected with some sort of virus, with 2 percent testing positive for AIDS. Bentwich tracked the health and treatment of all viral carriers from their first day on Jewish soil.
    Besides finding that half the Ethiopian Jews were exposed to the virus but did not develop it, he noticed the disease behaved differently in Israel than in Africa. This suggests that environmental factors may affect the course of the illness.
    In Africa, Ethiopians infected with HIV died two to three times more quickly than those infected in the West.

    http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/1715/edition_id/27/format/html/displaystory.html

    Another one of the 'big scares' subsides.

    GBL

    Thanks. I guess i didn't fully get frank's question because it didn't correlate w the idea of the article. As leolaia has explained, it was a straw man question, due to frank's failure to understanding of the article and doesn't understand evolution.

    S

    Ps for frank, some animals don't die when they eat poison mushrooms. The squirrel, for instance.

  • Satanus
    Satanus

    Tall penguin

    Here is an earlier news article about resistance to aids. While this may not have been total immunity, what is interesting is that it was dna based, thus indicating a process that is part of the evolutionary theory.

    Published: August 16, 1997

    Researchers studying specimens from 3,000 people have confirmed a genetic mutation that inhibits disease progression in people infected with the virus that causes that AIDS.

    In a study being published today in the journal Science, scientists at the National Cancer Institute said the altered gene, along with one discovered earlier, accounted for about 30 percent of the long-term survivors of H.I.V. infection.

    The mutation, in a gene called CCR2, tends to protect people infected with H.I.V. from rapid deterioration into AIDS. An earlier study identified a protective mutation in a gene called CCR5.

    ''These gene alterations tell us that nature already has devised a therapy that works without significant side effects,'' said Stephen O'Brien, a doctoral researcher at the cancer institute and senior author of the study. ''If we can pinpoint how these altered genes contain H.I.V., it may be possible to use this knowledge to develop treatments that help people delay the onset of AIDS.''

    Both CCR2 and CCR5 are genes that produce chemokine receptors, a group of proteins found on the surface of immune system blood cells. Studies last year showed that people lacking both normal copies of the CCR5 gene do not become infected with H.I.V. despite repeated exposure. Those with one missing copy of the CCR5 gene can become infected but their infections take years longer to progress into AIDS.

    Earlier laboratory studies suggested that a CCR2 mutation also retarded H.I.V. infection, but the new study is the first to confirm this in clinical studies. The study shows that patients with the CCR2 mutation develop AIDS up to four years later than patients who have the normal CCR2 gene.

    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9A0DE1DA133FF935A2575BC0A961958260&n=Top%2fNews%2fHealth%2fDiseases%2c%20Conditions%2c%20and%20Health%20Topics%2fAIDS

    S

  • Satanus
    Satanus

    One more, tp.

    The most recent study, published today in the journal Science, provides the most detailed and convincing evidence yet that 1 in 100 whites have complete immunity to infection by the AIDS virus and 1 in 5 whites have inherited a resistance to the progress of AIDS once infected with the virus.

    Almost no blacks have the particular protective mutation investigated in this study,

    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C00E3DF153CF934A1575AC0A960958260&n=Top%2fNews%2fHealth%2fDiseases%2c%20Conditions%2c%20and%20Health%20Topics%2fAIDS

    S

  • GetBusyLiving
    GetBusyLiving

    Hey Satanus, that's cool, I just wasn't sure if you guys were talking about the same thing. Leolaia's explanation was bang on. Take it easy.

    GBL

  • M.J.
    M.J.
    My understanding is that mutations may duplicate existing DNA sequences (thereby allowing a duplicate sequence to become a separate gene through subsequent copying errors), change the "spelling" of a sequence (thereby giving it a different function or making it non-functional), activate non-coding DNA into genes that encode protein, recombine existing genes (through such mechanisms as alternative splicing and tandem chimerism), and each of these developments may add complexity (or decrease it). There is "external input" in the form of ecological context which confers advantage or disadvantage to genetic functions.

    According to a site I've been looking at, despite such swapping, duplicating errors and such,

    the result of every known mutation is either neutral or deleterious, except when the disabling of a gene is advantageous. It is possible that "gene duplication" followed by other mutations could have occasionally produced a closely related new gene with a function very similar to the original one. But a convincing account of even one wholly new gene with an unrelated specific new function, arising from mutations of an existing gene, or assembled from random strands of nucleotides, has not been given.

    Here's an interesting article: http://www.panspermia.org/neodarw.htm

  • Apostate Kate
    Apostate Kate
    This is not evidence of evolution at all

    Yes it is. It's clear, unequivocal evidence of evolution. You could hardly ask for better evidence.

    I have never seen any scientific evidence of a species DNA aquiring NEW information. The lactose gene was already there. The fact that it made news is because of the thousands of instances of DNA mutations causing negative consequenses, this may be one of thousands that served a purpose. Not evidence to me but more an accident than the norm.

    I will never understand how anyone can deduce that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Entropy does not apply to all life forms and organic matter. It is a scientific, totally proven LAW of nature. Everything is winding down, everything decays into smaller particles. Our own DNA is decaying into more and more mutations until we too will die off as a species.

    There is no scientific evidence that we are evolving into a higher life form. On the contrary the evidence shows us devolving into a violent species headed for total nuclear annialation. I was part of the human genome project and my DNA line has grown so unstable I would not be alive but for regular medical procedures.

    If there can be found one step forward in science, there will be five steps backwards associated with it.

  • funkyderek
    funkyderek

    Apostate Kate:

    I have never seen any scientific evidence of a species DNA aquiring NEW information.

    Have you looked?

    The lactose gene was already there.

    No, there were new mutations. Brand new, never before seen pieces of genetic information. Four different ones with the same effect, in fact.

    The fact that it made news is because of the thousands of instances of DNA mutations causing negative consequenses, this may be one of thousands that served a purpose. Not evidence to me but more an accident than the norm.

    Most mutations are of course negative or neutral, but they are not the ones that spread rapidly. The rarer beneficial ones (and of course what's beneficial depends on the environment) spread rapidly. These newly discovered mutations are brilliant examples of the power of natural selection.

    I will never understand how anyone can deduce that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Entropy does not apply to all life forms and organic matter. It is a scientific, totally proven LAW of nature.

    Absolutely. I agree with you on that 100% as does anybody with even the most basic knowledge of science.

    Everything is winding down, everything decays into smaller particles.

    You can clearly see that's not true, at least locally. You can see flowers growing, populations increasing, buildings being built, all things that presumably you think are impossible. Here's the scoop. Realise this and you'll stop looking like an idiot in these discussions. The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy increases in a thermodynamically closed system. The earth is not a closed system. It has a constant and massive input of energy from outside. Nobody who has thought for even a moment about this could think that entropy always increases.

    Our own DNA is decaying into more and more mutations until we too will die off as a species.

    This is nonsense. You shouldn't speak so authoritatively when you know so little about the subject at hand.

    There is no scientific evidence that we are evolving into a higher life form.

    No, but there is vast evidence that we evolved from lower life forms.

    On the contrary the evidence shows us devolving into a violent species headed for total nuclear annialation.

    Devolving? More unfounded nonsense.

    I was part of the human genome project and my DNA line has grown so unstable I would not be alive but for regular medical procedures.

    Ah, perhaps that's what you mean by "devolving", that people with bad mutations in former times would have died and therefore failed to pass on their genes whereas now, they survive and reproduce, thereby diluting the quality of the gene pool. There's some truth to that, but I don't think there's a significant effect, and in any case, it does not mean that we should advocate eugenics. Your understanding of the whole situation seems fairly poor in any case but you're the only one who can fix that.

    If there can be found one step forward in science, there will be five steps backwards associated with it.

    I should probably try to think of more synonyms for nonsense.

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia
    I have never seen any scientific evidence of a species DNA aquiring NEW information.

    There is a huge literature on this. Here is a review article of just the material on primate evolution:

    http://genome.osu.edu/ibgp730/readings/lecture_02-Op-01.pdf

    See for instance:

    The evolution of trichromatic colour vision is a relatively recent innovation that was achieved through duplication of the opsin genes in a common ancestor of Old World monkeys and apes 44,45 . Mutation of the duplicated X-chromosome gene facilitated detection of a wider spectrum of visible light, which is thought to have been an important asset to our primate ancestor that helped it to distinguish yellow and red fruits against green foliage 44 . Similarly, the evolution of the antipathogen function of the eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) occurred as a result of duplication and mutation of an eosinophil-derived neurotoxin gene ~31 Mya 46 . The most significant mutational changes resulted in an enrichment of arginines, which supposedly altered the function of this duplicate early in its evolution. In both these examples, rapid evolution of new function occurred in concert with tandem duplication events.

    Rapid evolution of primate genes has also been documented for interspersed segmental duplications. A 20-kb segment of chromosome 16, termed LCR16a, recently (12–5 Mya) proliferated, creating 15–30 copies that are dispersed throughout 15 Mb of the short arm of human and chimpanzee chromosome 16. A novel hominoid gene family (termed morpheus, after the Greek god of dreams who could change into many different human forms) was discovered in half of the human duplicates. Surprisingly, the exonic regions of this gene family showed accelerated rates of mutation when compared with intronic regions (FIG. 5). Comparison of putative protein- encoding exons revealed that most of these changes (>95%) resulted in amino-acid changes. Consequently, average coding sequence divergence (15–20%) among copies between human and chimpanzee far exceeds the amount of intronic sequence divergence (1–2%). Analysis of this gene family among hominoids shows that the main episode of enhanced amino-acid replacement occurred after the separation of human, chimpanzee and gorilla lineages from the orang-utans (30- fold accelerated rate of amino-acid replacement when compared with neutrally evolving DNA). Two aspects of the evolution of the LCR16a duplication are instructive. First, the analysis reveals an unprecedented degree of evolutionary plasticity between the human genome and that of its closest relatives.... The second important lesson learned from the LCR16a amplification is that the evolution of this duplication was accompanied by strong POSITIVE SELECTION. Unlike most other examples of gene duplication, there is no evidence from the morpheus gene family for conservation of ancestral function. In fact, the genic segments in many respects seem to have evolved from the ‘ether’ of non-functional DNA or DNA under weak NEGATIVE SELECTION 50 .

    44. Nei, M., Zhang, J. & Yokoyama, S. Color vision of ancestral organisms of higher primates. Mol. Biol. Evol. 14, 611–618 (1997).

    45. Yokoyama, S., Starmer, W. T. & Yokoyama, R. Paralogous origin of the red- and green-sensitive visual pigment genes in vertebrates. Mol. Biol. Evol. 10, 527–538 (1993).

    46. Rosenberg, H. F. & Dyer, K. D. Eosinophil cationic protein and eosinophil-derived neurotoxin. Evolution of novel function in a primate ribonuclease gene family. J. Biol. Chem. 270, 21539–21544 (1995).

    50. Johnson, M. E. et al. Positive selection of a gene family during the emergence of humans and African apes. Nature 413, 514–519 (2001).

    See also the many articles and resources on the webiste:

    http://darwiniana.org/genetics.htm

  • Apostate Kate
    Apostate Kate
    Realise this and you'll stop looking like an idiot in these discussions

    Your right Derek, I don't know enough to participate in these deep discussions. I could never be as smart as you are since my DNA is so screwed up.

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit