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.
Alan Fox,
Only when she stops craving it 🙂
Well, so long as she’s a willing participant, live and let live!
I’m trying to say that this particular concern is pretty meaningless to me. I’m convinced I have far more relevant ways to spend my thoughts and energy than to stress over whether I was “intended”, whatever that means.
Is that what I was doing? Tsk. Social reasons? I am intrigued. What might those be?
I like to think that what we are intended to do is something we decide for ourselves.
In my opinion Behe’s flagellum argument relies, not on nineteenth century biology, but. on vey modern research. It is only through modern technology that we can know of the anatomy and function of entities such as flagella, kinesins, ribosomes, and microtubules. And just as limbs are meaningless without the context of the organism of which they are a part, so too are these entities meaningless in isolation. The whole organism or cell is a harmonious working together of all its parts.
Life is a nested hierarchy of non-isolable entities from kingdoms and phyla to protein complexes and genomes, all of which become irreducible complex.at some point.
Of course humans have violated the central dogma. Researchers have determined that the DNA sequence of tryptophan is ACC (template strand). So if I was asked to state which DNA sequence will be used to produce tryptophan, I have that information. (See chart obtained from here).
If Craig Venter was given a list of amino acids and asked to produce a sequence of DNA which would translate into that sequence, would his team be able to accomplish this?
For my understanding: both of you are saying that James Shapiro was correct in claiming that the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology has been overthrown because humans are capable of artificially synthesizing polynucleotides.
That is your argument, right?
You wish that control could be reduced to the genome but in so doing you are asking the tail to wag the dog. Creatures that begin life as zygotes are very much under the control of the mother organism. Even within the primal cell she is the main supplier of the organelles and substances which are essential for development. What controls the organism’s journey down the fallopian tube and eventual implantation into the wall of the uterus? Control is through harmonious coordination of multiple processes.
If individuals began life as a bare genome, or you could establish that life on earth sprang from bare genetic material, then you would have a point. Life was already complex when it began.
I just did above. “Phenomenon x” being informed human beings.
In engineering and manufacture components are made within certain tolerances. If a shaft is designed to have a clearance fit in a hole so that it takes up less than 100% of the available space, would you call that an error? Likewise impurities are sometimes deliberately added to metal so they become less that 100% pure. Would you class this as an accident?
If you are unsure why DNA error repair does not correct every change can you categorically claim that this is an error of the system? I would think that because of the way mutations have been portrayed, the majority of those asked, what mutations are, they would speak of them as if they were unwanted errors.
I’m not aware that humans can do reverse translation, even with computers.
Is there any reason to believe there is even a unique solution to reverse translating a protein?
Is there a homunculus that wants?
There is not a unique solution, there are many (for any sequence of interest). But humans can, using their proteins, devise and synthesize novel DNA sequences.
This is the ‘violation’ of the Central Dogma on which Bill and Charlie are hanging their hats.
So, given the state of our knowledge when Crick coined the term, it has to be one of the most successful predictions in history.
There’s an undistributed muddle in this.
Humans can alter DNA.
Cellular processes can alter DNA
Therefore, cellular processes are human.
Perhaps Charlie et al can come out of the closet and say where are in the spectrum of ideas.
1. everything was created in a few days
2. Number one, but the creation has the appearance of a history.
3. Species are immutable. Some have gone extinct, but others have been created since the first wave of creation.
4. Species evolve, but under the direction of an intervening entity
5. Species evolve, but the path is preplanned and predetermined. The path of evolution is set in the code.
6. Species evolve, but the path is stochastic, and prediction impossible.
7. Everything is determined, but unpredictable.
I’m guessing most ID folks lean toward four or five.
I don’t see any evidence supporting five in NGE.
I included polymerases and ligases because Shapiro included polymerases and ligases.
“…germline cells use DNA polymerase and DNA ligase”, there is holistic hope for you yet. 🙂
Have you taken a look at this link I posted? (Mutation-rate plasticity and the germline of unicellular organisms)
Germline cells derive from somatic cells and they all use what Shapiro terms NGE.
All cells have membranes, do you consider this to be an overgeneralization?
Could you supply a quote from Shapiro on this? What were you looking at to find only dysgenesis?
Why would they?
Most fungi use the wind to spread their spores. Do fungi have homunculi?
I’m still discussing it, and happy to carry on doing so.
If cells can unconsciously engineer changes, why can’t fungi have homunculi….
What about mutations in somatic precursors to germ cells? Are they dead ends?
This obsession with the word “use” is getting out of hand. You might as well say the clouds “use” gravity to get rain to the ground.
Things affect each other, the word “use” in this context is just a convenient way of expressing this thing you call a “holistic” view of these interactions.
Fungal spores are spread by the wind. So are farts, and so is sand and dust. The wind picks up the spores! Who is using who? The sand is using the wind to spread? The wind is using the sand to wear down and erode rocks? We can use the word without it in any way implying there is some sort of intention or comprehension in the events they describe.
Now for most people this seems implicitly well understood. We are using a quirk of linguistics out of convenience.
Sadly there are some people who read things into how humans communicate when we describe material interactions, that there are no good reason to think are really there.
This kind of teleological interpretation is possible with all historical developments. In so far as one thing A leads to another thing B, in any imaginable universe or world, one can come up with this ad-hoc rationalization that A happened so as to produce B.
But it just doesn’t follow that because A caused and/or led to B, that B is some sort of intended development or “end” for which A was created.
Teleology is therefore not really rationally inferred from the historical developments, it is interpreted into the events. A sort of “teleology-colored” glasses you put on and through which you interpret the world. But what you’re seeing is just a product of putting on those glasses, and the world can be usually be equally well understood and described without this tint in the picture.
Except when humans get involved. 🙂
Does Shapiro class endosymbiosis as NGE? In your opinion is endosymbiosis irrelevant to evolution?
There is no linear causal chain. Ultimately there is a combined, cooperative causal network. Unless, of course, you have examples of any life beginning from a bare genome.
Why didn’t i read your post before now? As can be seen, I’ve been thinking along the same lines. 🙂
Quite. It was your phrasing that the list “includes processes which apply to all cells” which was misleading. Some of the processes on his list are universal, others are not. It is the differences that matter.
Naah. Like that moist robot Dennett, I am not trying to impute any purpose to the verb ‘use’. You are equivocating — is it the only tool you have?
1. NO THEY DO NOT derive from somatic cells.
2. it matters not whether they use ‘what Shapiro terms NGE’. What matters is what they do. Map/territory, ffs.
[checks for cells without membranes]
Nope, that seems fine.
Your process is missing a step, Charlie. An important one.
Yes, I have. I was entertained by the complete and utter lack of any germ cells in the article. It uses the term “germline” in a rather esoteric way. Care to explain in your own words?
Shapiro wrote:
“The burden of explaining what other cells lack that lymphocytes possess lays with those who wish to adopt the position that the immune response is unique and does not reflect a more general capacity to target genome change.”
That’s an admission that he’s got nothing. It’s is an explicit burden shift.
The germlines of multicellular organisms, especially maize, drosophila, rodents and primates.
I do not expect you to respond to any of this, Charlie. I predict that you will react by writing and pasting stuff that makes you feel better, but is not related to the previous topics of conversation.
There’s a pattern.
ETN: floral exception. Hardly what was being discussed…
I simply don’t follow your reasoning.
Things happen. Sometimes really big things.
My question to you has several parts.
Are events like endosymbiosis foreseeable? Is there any way to know in advance that it is possible, and if so, to take deliberate steps to make it happen?
What would you mean by deliberate?
If not, then so what? The first word in NGE is natural.
How is this discussion different than the flagellum argument.
We have a complex, gee whiz phenomenon. What are you reading into it?
Instead of the loaded word, engineering, how about induced mutagenesis?
What is lost?
And that is a good demonstration of where the control lies. It is not in the string of characters, they are only following the rules set up by Richard Dawkins. Rules which were conceived in his mind.
I’m not sure where the creation of diversity fits in with the “Weasel” program which begins with diversity and aims for sameness.
Does the flow of information actually require physical and chemical interactions in the way that you are envisioning it?
Methinks you overlooked something.
That’s really funny.
For years the main criticism of Weasel was it “engineered” its diversity.
I guess it turns out to be more analogous to life, after all.
Hard to believe we are all the way back to the inability to follow 20 lines of code.
The beauty of it is that, in actuality, you don’t need to physically obtain nucleotides from strings of organic amino acids to know the processes involved in their formation. They will provide you with the information as to the strings of DNA that coded for them.
Has anyone here used this tool?
“Protein Sequence Back-translation
Backtranseq (EMBOSS)
EMBOSS Backtranseq back-translates protein sequences to nucleotide sequences.”
It is indeed hard to envision how earthly life could have began without nucleic acids in some form. As it is equally hard to envision how life could have began without some sort of cell membrane enclosing an appropriate cytoplasm and with the ability to control the substances which pass through the membrane. Whatever form the initial entity took, it would have had to have been irreducibly complex to achieve continuous reproduction.
How fortunate was it that all the basic elements and molecules which could form various bonds and create polymers essential to life were present just floating around waiting to be used for that purpose. 🙂
I don’t see anyone claiming actual reverse translation of protein to the original DNA.
Edit to add:
If there can be multiple solutions to a cryptogram, it’s a bit premature to say you have solved it.
But that’s hypothetical.
In fact, there is no molecular machinery that implements reverse translation.
That discussion is dead.
So we are back to irreducible complexity?
Of course for some people the genome is the homunculus directing operations, sitting behind his nuclear membrane curtain, pulling all the strings, like some wizard of Oz.
No one is arguing against the necessity of chemistry and physics. But are they sufficient to produce the creativity?
Working out the 3D shape of proteins is just the beginning of our understanding of proteins. Our hands have a 3D shape, but this shape is far from fixed and static. Its dynamism allows the hand to be used in multiple ways. Likewise over and above their shape it is the dynamic nature of proteins that makes them so interesting. Compare the universal hook joint of a bacterial flagellum with the crude universal joints in the drive shafts of our cars.
Apparently, yes.
Unless you can point to something going on that isn’t chemistry. Good luck.
The term “mutation” seems to be used to describe a whole variety of changes to the DNA. Organisms do initiate some changes within genomes and they also have measures in place for dealing with changes due to external influences. Of course there are instances when these influences become too severe to cope with, but I would not call these creative forces.
As Behe has pointed out the main evidence for point mutations being beneficial to the organism are the result of breaking something.
Ah, the flagellum again.
Imagine my surprise.
He proposed NGE as a process of change, not a monitoring system.
What a shock to find Paley’s watchmaker embedded in the discussion of Shapiro.
Must be by design.
Instead of the loaded word “selection” for evolution, how about just say..dying? Not selected? Bad accidents and good accidents? You are the good accident? Everything that doesn’t exist is the bad accident? Or non-accident, so perhaps we should say good accidents and no accidents? Because selection is not a thing at all. Its just a way of saying something died.
Evolution-progress through non-progress.
Progress is also a loaded word.
How about accumulated change?
petrushka,
Accumulated accidents and death?
Sort of like Israel- except the dead Palestinian children aren’t accidents?
Squirrel!
Metaphors are entrenched ( 🙂 ) in our language. Have you tried communicating without them?
Cells control what passes through them by various signalling processes the same way that it can be said that you control your temperature, your breathing, your food intake etc. They control many processes. Control does not have to be conscious control.
It is quite common for research to be published regarding the ability and functioning of cells. Are you going to criticise these researchers for the language they use?
How about the following on cell activity:
How Cells Know Where They Are, or Programmed Cell Death (Apoptosis) “If cells are no longer needed, they commit suicide by activating an intracellular death program.”?
There’s plenty more where those examples came from.
It’s not the researchers who merit criticism.
It is readers who overload their metaphors.