Evolution Reflected in Development

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Below is an image of the developmental path from human conception to adult in comparison with evolutionary path from prokaryote to human.

Unlike Haeckel’s biogenetic law with its focus on physical forms, the comparison above also concerns activity, lifestyle and behaviour. Comparative stages may be vastly different in detail, but the similarity of general lifestyles and consecutive stages are there to be observed.

Human life begins in an aquatic environment. Toddlers gradually learn to walk upright from a previous state of crawling and moving around on all fours. The brains of children develop through daily interactions and experiences. This brain development accompanies the child’s increasing ability to achieve complex manipulation skills using hands that have been released from the task of providing support and locomotion, and also the practice of producing sounds using the various muscles of the mouth. Well developed brains allow for rational thinking and the creative use of language.

Human minds have brought about technological advances which have allowed human activities to engulf the planet. Signs of intelligent human activity are evident a good distance beyond the earth spreading ever further out into space.

The various forms of extant animals and all other life forms have evolved as an integral component of the living earth and the whole forms a dynamic system.

The various animal forms should be studied in the context of the complete system in both time and space.  Conditions would have been very different prior to the terrestrial colonization of earthly life In all probability none of the present aquatic animals would bear any resemblance to the aquatic ancestors of humans and other higher vertebrates save that at some stage they all require an aquatic environment for their continued existence.

From a point of view which regards physical organisms as the individual expressions of overarching general forms, the evolution of cetaceans need not have involved moving to the land only to return to the water at a later time. They may have reached the mammalian stage of evolution but in a way that was suitable for an aquatic lifestyle. They adopted the archetypal mammalian form in a way that suited an animal living in an aquatic environment and there would be no need to posit a terrestrial stage in their evolution.

It’s my belief that higher consciousness is ever present. Evolution is the process whereby higher forms of consciousness descend from the group level to the individual level. The most fully developed individual consciousness which I am aware of on earth can be found in humans but it is still rudimentary compared to the higher level group consciousness.

Plasticity is a fundamental feature of living systems at all levels from human brain development to the radiation of multicellular life. Paths are formed by branching out and becoming fixed along certain lines. It would be impossible to forecast specific paths but, nonetheless, there is a general overall direction.

Now that biological life has reached the stage where social organisms have become individually creative and rational, the all encompassing Word is reflected in single beings. This could not have come about without preparation and the evolution of earthly life is the evidence of this preparation. We, as individuals, are only able to use language and engage in rational thinking because our individual development has prepared us to do so. Likewise humanity could not arrive at the present state of culture without the evolutionary preparation in its entirety.

Focussing in at the lower level gives a picture of ruthless competition, of nature “red in tooth and claw”. But from a higher vantage point life benefits from this apparent brutality. For instance if a sparrowhawk makes regular hunting visits to a suitable habitat in your neighbourhood it signifies that this environment supports a healthy songbird population. In the case of the continued evolution of physical forms, survival of the breeding population is more important than any individual’s survival. In the evolution of consciousness the individual is the important unit.

I think it is a mistake to see biological evolution as a blind random groping towards an unknown and unknowable future.

896 thoughts on “Evolution Reflected in Development”

  1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3372291/

    Some balanced praise:

    Finally, a point where Shapiro and I would agree is that sometimes the recruitment of a single gene, in terms of the right regulator for example, can give a bacterial population the ability to adapt to an ecological niche [6]. There is evidence this has given rise to a new ‘species’; I think most would agree that selection plays an obvious role here. (Shapiro makes a somewhat strange claim that “It is important to note that selection has never led to formation of a new species, as Darwin postulated… page 121, but based on what he writes in the rest of the book, I suspect he is here thinking of the need for variations to act on – so in this sense, selection is not technically ‘creating’ a new species.) We have found clusters of V. cholera specific genes that might be responsible for adaption to a particular environment, and to me it seems clear that selection is acting at the genomic level to keep these genomic islands present within a species [7]. Thus, selection is working on natural variation – randomness is still there, in the background, but there is a level of ‘jumps’ that seem to defy the old adage Natura non facit saltum, or ‘Nature does not make leaps’ – sometimes it does! But this has to be seen in the larger picture of evolved complicated systems and network engineering.

  2. OMagain:
    CharlieM: not all of the processes are designed

    OMagain: Designed by who/what? The cells themselves?

    My full text to give the context:

    “So when he talks about NGE he is referring to the way that cells manipulate their compliment of DNA. Whether they be somatic cells or germ cells, they are all involved in these processes. They do this in very diverse and intricate ways, some targeted more specifically than others, and not all of the processes are designed to ensure that the cell and its genome are guaranteed to be copied and to continue the line of descent. Germ cell apoptosis is an example of the termination of continued existence”

    Designed as in naturally (unconsciously) engineered by the cell. There are many examples in nature of skilful but instinctive design.

  3. The question I still have is whether NGE foresees the effects of specific mutations.

    Some evidence of this would be interesting.

  4. Allan Miller:
    CharlieM: What are you classing as single cells? Gametes are also single cells. Do you mean “free living” single cells, single cells which belong to colonies or what?

    Allan Miller: I mean organisms whose life cycle does not include a multicellular, somatic phase.

    Have you read the link I subsequently posted? (“Mutation-rate plasticity and the germline of unicellular organisms”)

  5. Allan Miller:
    CharlieM: So when he talks about NGE he is referring to the way that cells manipulate their compliment [sic] of DNA.  (oops complement)

    Rendering it utterly vacuous, as far as I can see.

    So you are not arguing against cells manipulating their DNA? In your opinion the statement is true but vacuous?

  7. CharlieM: So you are not arguing against cells manipulating their DNA?

    How does a cell manipulate? I’m sure you know the word derives from Latin for hand. Cells don’t have hands. If you wish to hypothesize that there is a process happening, it is more convincing if you can suggest a mechanism by which it happens.

  8. phoodoo: I see no evidence, (and in this video here appears to understand quite clearly) that James Shaipro has any misunderstandings about what Crick’s “central dogma” of evolution means

    Well this is highly revealing because it’s the central dogma of molecular biology, not central dogma of evolution. Evolution says nothing about what direction information should or should not be flowing between protein and nucleic acid. The facts of the matter with respect to whether one type of polymer sequence information can be biochemically extracted from another owes to the basic principles of physical chemistry, not evolution.

    So it’s not really a surprise you see no evidence, you’re too uneducated to even know what the the subject matter is about, and your much advertised hatred of all things evolution-related instantly compels you to love anyone saying something that can be even remotely interpreted as a criticism of evolution, no matter how ill-conceived it might be.

    Serious question phoodoo, have you ever heard an anti-evolution argument you didn’t like or thought was wrong? When is the last time you rebutted or corrected someone advancing an anti-evolution argument because you knew that, even though you think evolution is wrong, at least that argument was bad? Give a real example please. Can you even think of someone having said something they believe contradicts evolution yet where you knew that in this instance they were wrong?

  9. Rumraket,

    I also enjoyed the fact that, in phoodoo’s video, Shapiro can never quite bring himself to say what the Central Dogma says..

  10. phoodoo,

    I see no evidence, (and in this video here appears to understand quite clearly) that James Shaipro has any misunderstandings about what Crick’s “central dogma” of evolution means, and I seriously doubt that Shapiro is wrong when he explains the examples that undermine that so called dogma.

    I gave you the direct quote from Crick’s original paper, in which he specifically refers to sequential informational flow. That you insist that Shapiro is correct in saying something that does not transfer sequential information from protein to nucleic acid still violates the dogma indicates 2 things:
    1) You don’t understand it.
    2) You will swallow whole and uncritically anything anyone says if you perceive them as posing a problem for evolution.

    Like I say, you latch onto people, not ideas. The latest phoodoo phoam phinger: “Go Shapiro”.

  11. CharlieM: As severe a case of anthropomorphitis as I have witnessed here

    Where does Shapiro equate natural genetic engineering with the conscious engineering of humans?

    In using the term ‘engineering’, you must forgive me for thinking he meant something by it. But that semantic issue enabled you to evade my entire point.

  12. CharlieM,

    What if genetics were not the driver of evolution, but just a link in the drive chain?

    What if we dropped analogies and talked of the actual thing?

  13. CharlieM: So you are not arguing against cells manipulating their DNA? In your opinion the statement is true but vacuous?

    If he includes polymerases, or ligases, or helicases, or topoisomerases, it has descended to the level of the banal. No-one is arguing that there are no genes with DNA as substrate.

  14. Rumraket,

    Serious question phoodoo, have you ever heard an anti-evolution argument you didn’t like or thought was wrong? 

    I asked Charlie a similar question – “did you ever encounter a maverick you didn’t like?”. He deflected it with a joke, which is fair enough, but it is interesting.

  16. Rumraket,

    Changes to DNA creates changes to protein (all accidentally and totally without meaning of course) IS the evolutionary theory you twit. Have you forgotten all about your “if copying was perfect” we would all be screwed rhetoric already?

    Or you no longer believe this also?

    Go tell Allan what information means, he can’t read his own quotes.

  17. Allan Miller: 2) You will swallow whole and uncritically anything anyone says if you perceive them as posing a problem for evolution.

    Ask Rumraket, he thinks it has nothing to do with evolution.

  18. Allan Miller: If he includes polymerases, or ligases, or helicases, or topoisomerases, it has descended to the level of the banal.

    Oh, but its BANAL! Why didn’t you say so? You accept banal changes.

  19. phoodoo:

    Changes to DNA creates changes to protein

    From my reading, I learn that changing DNA changes far more than proteins — indeed, key DNA changes relate to which switches turn on and off at which times.

    (all accidentally and totally without meaning of course)

    I sense two possible errors here. First, “accidentally” generally implies something occurring contrary to intention. Here, there is no intention. Second, DNA changes can be meaningless (that is, creating “synonyms” without any substantive change), but the important changes are highly meaningful, because they impart permanent phenotypic modification.

    I think what you mean to say is “largely random, and largely not useful.”

  20. phoodoo: Changes to DNA creates changes to protein (all accidentally and totally without meaning of course) IS the evolutionary theory you twit.

    Evolutionary theory is based on selection. Selection is bias. That bias (in the context of the niche – remember the niche, phoodoo) is what leads to change over time, increase in complexity. You’ll remain not being taken seriously until you begin to criticize the real theory rather than your incorrect strawman version.

  21. phoodoo: Changes to DNA creates changes to protein (all accidentally and totally without meaning of course)

    And that is why you hate it. You can’t help but tell us how this is all about how you hate and fear evolution because of what kind of emotions it stirs in you that you are the product of unintended, blind chemical reactions.

    phoodoo:IS the evolutionary theory you twit.

    Hey phoodoo, I see you skipped my question to you. You can’t think of even a single stupid antievolution argument you didn’t like, proving you are really just an unreflecting cheerleader of anything anti-evolution. Which, ironically. Shapiro’s NGE is not. But I digress.

    To get back to your education, no, that’s just the central dogma of molecular biology. It’s not evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory is about heritable transgenerational change.

    The central dogma of molecular biology says sequence information goes either between nucleic acid, or from nucleic acid to protein (so that if you know the nucleic acid sequence, you can predict the protein sequence), not from protein to nucleic acid (you can’t predict the nucleic acid sequence from the protein sequence).

    There is no systematic relationship that takes amino acid sequence from protein and puts it back into DNA sequences. While there are enzymes that edit DNA (post-translational modification, and transposons), their mechanism of action does not follow a systematic set of rules such that a particular enzyme sequence always produces a particular DNA sequence. Hence sequence information only goes one way. Reverse translation does not occur, and DNA editing enzymes do not contradict this fact because they don’t systematically reverse-translate protein sequence into DNA/RNA sequence.

    None of which is evolution, it’s just basic biochemistry. These facts were all determined through experiments in physical biochemistry. The structural and chemical properties of molecules are the determining factors of how sequence information flows from one system to another.

    This lesson was for free. You don’t have to thank me.

  22. In this video, Shapiro begins with his conclusions which are:

    1. The only constant in life is change at all time scales.
    2. Cells read their genomes dynamically to adapt to changing conditions during cell reproduction and multicellular development.
    3. Genome reading is a function of order inscriptions (coding data, signals for interaction with cell molecules, nucleoprotein complexes, chromatin formatting).
    4. Genome inscription is an active physiological process at all biological time scales.
    5. In evolution, cells actively write data and formatting signals into their genomes by avariety of processes including symbiogenesis, horizontal transfer and natural genetic engineering.

    I do not like the way that he uses computer analogies to describe cellular processes because it gives the impression that cells are machines and many people here know how I feel about that.

    But in my opinion he is correct in pointing out that protein complexes do change DNA sequences. So how can his critics say that this does not violate the central dogma? Because they are using information transfer in a much narrower sense.

    To violate the dogma critics are looking for proteins to transcribe their amino acid sequences back into nucleotide sequences for transcription and insertion back into the DNA chain. Well. it’s true that this does not happen. But proteins never had this function in the first place. They have a great variety of functions including making changes to the genome, but reinserting nucleotides to match their own sequences of amino acids into the genome is not one of them. Why would they need to do this when the sequence is already there, albeit possible in sections which require to be separated out and joined together in the appropriate order.

    DNA gets transcribed and translated into amino acids but amino acids never get transcribed and translated into DNA. This is the reverse process which never happens and so allows defenders of the dogma to claim that it remains intact. As I see it the fact that protein complexes change genomes in other ways does not count in their book.

  23. CharlieM: DNA gets transcribed and translated into amino acids but amino acids never get transcribed and translated into DNA. This is the reverse process which never happens and so allows defenders of the dogma to claim that it remains intact. As I see it the fact that protein complexes change genomes in other ways does not count in their book.

    Yes, thank you. That is correct. And let’s be clear that this really is Crick’s original formulation of the central dogma of molecular biology. So people who are invoking DNA editing enzymes and transposons just don’t appear to have really understood Crick. There is sadly a widespread misconception about what Crick actually originally said being propagated by people who don’t do their homework properly.

  24. petrushka:
    CharlieM: Control of variation, not a one-sided increase of variation, is a feature of living systems. If there are laws that allow for dynamic balance there doesn’t need to be deliberation at every step of a process. Feedback mechanisms prevent runaway variation. Polarity is in evidence throughout nature and nothing happens in isolation.

    petrushka: WTF are you saying?

    I’m saying:
    1. ” Control of variation, not a one-sided increase of variation, is a feature of living systems.” For example B and T cells need to create as much variation as they can to contribute to an efficient immune system where as introducing random changes would be detrimental to osteoblasts Variation needs to be controlled to suit the applicable needs.

    2. “If there are laws that allow for dynamic balance there doesn’t need to be deliberation at every step of a process. Feedback mechanisms prevent runaway variation.” DNA repair processes happen automatically. And I’ve just had a thought that I might look into. How do the DNA repair processes differ between various cells such as T cell and osteoblasts where one requires stability and the other requires variability?

    3. “Polarity is in evidence throughout nature and nothing happens in isolation”. Dynamic balance requires many plates to be kept spinning as it were. In cells, in organs, in organisms, in populations, growth and decomposition need to be kept in a balanced harmony for any living system is to develop normally. Cancer is the obvious example of imbalance.

    petrushka: Variation balanced by feedback sounds suspiciously like a process we’ve heard of before.

    Show me an instance of NGE making preferentially useful changes. I don’t see any in Shapiro’s book.

    He cites the origin of mitochondria and chloroplasts as processes of NGE in which the DNA of the separate organisms are combined by “natural engineering” processes. Have you read in the book where he talks about the endosymbiosis of mitochondria?

  25. Neil Rickert:
    CharlieM: NGE is a general term for processes that cut, splice, proof read, repair, transport, unwind or otherwise manipulate DNA.

    Neil Rickert: Then that is misuse of language.

    We already have the term “crafting”, and that seems very different from “engineering”.

    I tend to agree with you there. Although the subject of evolution is no stranger to inappropriate language.

  26. Charlie, you keep writing pages and pages of stuff, much of which is not wrong, but which is unresponsive.

    NGE is in no way a modification of mainstream evolutionary theory.

    If I wanted to write a glowing review of it, I would say it complements “Arrival of the Fittest,” and put together in one place, much of what is known about the origin of some kinds of novelty.

    But anyone who studies evolution already knew that point mutations are not the only kind of genetic change.

    ID proponents seem desperately to want to believe that some entity chooses mutations, causes changes to occur, knowing the function in advance.

    This is conceptually different from making lots of changes, some of which are useful.

    I’m pretty sure Shapiro establishes NGE as doing the latter.

  27. Rumraket: And that is why you hate it. You can’t help but tell us how this is all about how you hate and fear evolution because of what kind of emotions it stirs in you that you are the product of unintended, blind chemical reactions.

    Somehow, I’m not at all bothered by the knowledge that I am in some sense a meaningless accident. I mean, yes, my parents planned to have me, but beyond that had no control over what they’d get.

  28. Flint,

    Somehow, I’m not at all bothered by the knowledge that I am in some sense a meaningless accident. I mean, yes, my parents planned to have me, but beyond that had no control over what they’d get.

    What I would be more worried about is coming to this conclusion given the makeup of the universe.

    Your belief has little if any empirically support model other than wishful ideology.

  29. CharlieM:
    I do not like the way that he uses computer analogies to describe cellular processes because it gives the impression that cells are machines and many people here know how I feel about that.

    Haha, yes, analogies are shite aren’t they? 🤣

    But in my opinion he is correct in pointing out that protein complexes do change DNA sequences. So how can his critics say that this does not violate the central dogma? Because they are using information transfer in a much narrower sense.

    They are using it in Crick’s sense. He came up with the damned thing! Here he is again:

    ““this [the Central Dogma] states that once “information” has passed into protein it cannot get out again. […] the transfer of information from nucleic acid to nucleic acid, or from nucleic acid to protein may be possible, but the transfer from protein to protein, or from protein to nucleic acid, is impossible. “Information” here means the precise determination of sequence […]”

    I don’t know why this is so hard.

    To violate the dogma critics are looking for proteins to transcribe their amino acid sequences back into nucleotide sequences for transcription and insertion back into the DNA chain.

    Well. it’s true that this does not happen. But proteins never had this function in the first place. They have a great variety of functions including making changes to the genome, but reinserting nucleotides to match their own sequences of amino acids into the genome is not one of them. Why would they need to do this when the sequence is already there, albeit possible in sections which require to be separated out and joined together in the appropriate order.

    You’re right, they don’t need to do this, because nucleic acid sequence is at the head of the causal chain.

    DNA gets transcribed and translated into amino acids but amino acids never get transcribed and translated into DNA. This is the reverse process which never happens and so allows defenders of the dogma to claim that it remains intact. As I see it the fact that protein complexes change genomes in other ways does not count in their book.

    And why on earth are they wrong? Pesky evolutionists clinging to the original version of the Dogma and not allowing us to redefine it and declare the redefined version violated! Bastards.

  33. phoodoo: Changing DNA is changing the sequence.

    Does methylation change DNA sequence? See why you can’t be taken seriously? First understand…

  35. Charlie: Why are these changes regarded as errors? Is it not possible that cells are organised in such a way as to allow particular changes to persist while correcting other changes.

    Me: You may want to get a bit more specific on the “particular and other changes” bit. What exactly is the difference between a “particular” and an “other” change? How does the cell tell the difference?

    BTW: I know where you want to be going with this, but you should make this explicit.

    Charlie: I though I was being explicit. Genomic changes are complex. Just because we might be ignorant of all the intricacies of changes are we justified in assuming that they must be accidental? In a similar way prior to the technology that allowed us to observe the details within the cytoplasm of cells, it was generally assumed that it mainly consisted of molecules floating around waiting to bump into a suitable site.

    No, you are not being explicit. Let me ask again: What type of changes is the cell trying to preserve? What type of changes is it trying to correct? How does the cell tell the difference?

  36. CharlieM: The mutations which occur in somebody who has skin cancer may be the result of excessive exposure to the sun. This is what caused the mutations which lead to cancer.

    Me: People do not die from “excessive exposure to the sun”. They die of cancer.

    Charlie: Why some conditions develop can sometimes be traced to the behaviour in the history of the organism and so mutations or changes in DNA structure are effects not causes.

    Me: Very well. Then you better tell all cancer patients you meet that it is their own fault that they are dying

    Charlie: Please note, it is not my logic but your logic that survivors of the likes of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl who contracted cancer should themselves bear the responsibility. Since when has “some” been a synonym for “all”.

    Neither is it a synonym for “none”. You are being disingeneous here. Did the survivors of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl who contracted cancer do so from “excessive exposure to the sun”? I do not believe these were the people you initially directed your comment at.

  37. CharlieM: I believe that biological research lays too much emphasis on the chemistry and physics of life and this will not produce a satisfactory understanding of life in itself. It’s like trying to understand a story by examining the paper and ink it is written on and the form and arrangement of letters on the page. There is a tendency to ignore anything that goes beyond physics and chemistry.

    Me: What nonsense!

    There is a rich and enticing narrative at all biological levels above the molecular / cellular level. You just don’t like that narrative and now you are pretending that it is incomplete. It’s not.

    Charlie: You believe we have complete knowledge of biology? And I thought only God is considered to be omniscient according to believers.

    Do you believe that studying the levels above physics and chemistry will give us complete God-like knowledge of biology? If not, why on earth did you think that is what I meant?

    Just reformulating “So what you are saying is …” does not suffice. You are still trying to attribute absurd views to me.

  38. colewd: Flint: Somehow, I’m not at all bothered by the knowledge that I am in some sense a meaningless accident. I mean, yes, my parents planned to have me, but beyond that had no control over what they’d get.

    Bill: What I would be more worried about is coming to this conclusion given the makeup of the universe.

    Why would that worry you?

    colewd: Your belief has little if any empirically support model other than wishful ideology.

    Don’t you agree it is a bit silly to think that Flint *wants* to be a meaningless accident? Seems to me that he is just trying to make the best out of what life has given him.

  40. Alan Fox,

    Does GMO not involve changing DNA sequences?

    See why I don’t take you seriously?

    You won’t understand. Because you are a hack evolution preacher.

  41. phoodoo: Does GMO not involve changing DNA sequences?

    Yes, that it is why the technique(s) is referred to as genetic modification. Sequences can be snipped and substituted. But DNA methylation does not change sequences but plays an important role in whether genes are suppressed.

  42. petrushka:
    CharlieM (quoting Shapiro): How natural genetic engineering leads to major new inventions of adaptive use remains a central problem in evolution science.

    petrushka: We already have a good understanding of how variation plus feedback leads to adaptive inventions.

    What Shapiro et al need to do is show something new. If the immediate products of NGE are stochastic, then it adds nothing to the understanding of evolution, other than another source of variation. Possibly a mechanism to increase variation.

    Natural genetic crafting (a new term coined by Neil Rickert as an alternative to NGE:) ) uses both directed and stochastic activity to achieve its aims. No one would deny that zygotes are directed towards the mature adult. But there are many stochastic processes involved in achieving this target.

    We need to look beyond mechanisms for answers. We can describe the mechanics of copulation but that leaves out an important factor, the agencies involved.

    Mechanisms give us an understanding of the grammar of life, but this just describes how it is structured and leaves out the most important aspect which is the story behind it. Think about the mammalian limb. It has a great variety of forms depending on the particular animal to which it belongs. Its particularity is in a form which suits the lifestyle of its owner, but in its general form it complies with the archetypal mammalian limb. The archetype is the unity to which all physical examples conform. Each animal makes use of the archetypal limb according to its own life story.

    petrushka: But what Shapiro’s acolytes are reading into his book is the implication that NGE variants are disproportionately adaptive. Intelligently designed.

    His NGE covers a wide range of processes. Some activities are precisely directed and some activities use stochasticity to achieve results.

    To give an example, I have never seen him argue that mitochondrial symbiosis was aimed at producing higher eukaryotes. As far as I know he believed that it was just something that happened by chance, but once it did happen then the cells were able to share DNA and become integrated into a single organism. In other words they used NGE to take advantage of the situation.

    If he has said or written anything that contradicts this, please let me know so I can retract that statement.

  43. OMagain:
    CharlieM: Please note, it is not my logic but your logic that survivors of the likes of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl who contracted cancer should themselves bear the responsibility. Since when has “some” been a synonym for “all”.

    OMagain: Odd how I made the same ‘mistake’ regarding your thoughts on bad backs. Perhaps the problem is not mine or Corneel’s.

    Do you agree that some people can live a long and active life without having any back problems?

    Life is far from simple and many things affect us along the way, some purposeful, some accidental, some within our control and some outside of our control. You are overgeneralizing. I would not presume to judge individuals on the basis of general statistics. In my own case I could very well have shortened my life because of my past activities but there isn’t much I would change if I could.

    If someone had died of lung cancer brought on by constant smoke inhalation, I would not be in a position to lay the blame on them because, for all I know, it could have been passive smoking that did the damage. We should not be too hasty in allocating blame.

  44. petrushka:
    What definition of accidental are we using?

    Unintentional, occuing by chance.

    petrushka: If NGE does not make targeted changes, then it is merely increasing variation.

    If the changes ARE targeted, show me an instance.

    Viruses target cells and use NGE to break through the cell membranes. Leukocytes target foreign invaders. Microtubules extend towards specific targets.

  45. Alan Fox,

    So the central dogma has been violated-ta da.

    Or do you believe humans aren’t protein?

    Wow Alan, you have finally given up on materialism-congratulations!

  46. phoodoo: So the central dogma has been violated-ta da.

    Nope. You seem confused. Proteins do not serve as templates for producing DNA sequences.

  47. Corneel,

    Don’t you agree it is a bit silly to think that Flint *wants* to be a meaningless accident? Seems to me that he is just trying to make the best out of what life has given him.

    It’s clearly a choice.

    You can look at the evidence and go where it leads or deny it and not have to deal with the implications. A lot of people have hung on to the illogic of Hume, denied the failure of molecular macro evolution, and ignored the cohesiveness of the Bible in order to dodge accountability or support a failed ideology for social reasons.

  48. colewd: It’s clearly a choice.

    Totally agree. Personal belief should be a consequence-free choice for everyone.

  49. colewd: You can look at the evidence and go where it leads or deny it and not have to deal with the implications.

    This can be a choice with consequences.

  50. colewd: A lot of people have hung on to the illogic of Hume, denied the failure of molecular macro evolution, and ignored the cohesiveness of the Bible in order to dodge accountability or support a failed ideology for social reasons.

    Have you stopped beating your wife, Bill?

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