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.
It’s funny the asymmetry here where one ‘side’ asks for and receives clarifications, and when the converse happens that person just disappears and then re-appears conveniently forgetting any questions or clarifications previously requested……..
It is only legitimate to call these changes “errors” if it is first assumed that the replication processes are aiming for 100% fidelity to begin with.
If someone wants to post a JPEG here but it is too big, they can reduce its information content and send it as a smaller file. Would you call that an error? In both the case of JPEG transmission and the case of copying genomes the fidelity of copying is less than 100%.
There are many instances in which 100% accuracy is detrimental to the outcome and so it is reaching this level of accuracy that would be the error. You see little problem in using words like these because they bolster your prior assumptions.
It is the same as when I slip in words like “design” some people don’t approve, and I know what reaction I am likely to get.
I think Noble and Shapiro are basically correct when they argue from the perspective of the whole controlling the parts. In my opinion genomes are not in control. I know positions like they present will get examined and criticised here and so it helps me to think about what aspects of their views I find compelling and where I think they are on shaky ground. At the same time I have to try to understand the arguments more deeply than when I first encountered them.
I have no problem accepting that amino acid sequences do not get translated back into nucleotide sequences. That is not the function of proteins. They manipulate DNA in other ways. I am more interested in observing them in the capacity and tasks for which they are “designed” 🙂 They have their function within cells just as DNA has its function.
CharlieM,
I don’t think you’d recognise it if they were.
You are way too eager to latch on to anything that you think opposes placement of the genome as the ultimate seat of control – which, despite all your protestations, it is! All control elements are either genetically sourced, or are themselves genetic. Every last one of them. All proteins and functional RNAs likewise. You try to obfuscate this into a vague mush, laced with analogy, which you may find persuasive but … [shrug]. You need to find an element of control or activity which is not genetically sourced if you wish to unseat this paradigm.
CharlieM,
But you are hopefully now equipped to say, if you encounter someone saying ‘the Central Dogma is violated by phenomenon x’: “Hang on a sec…”.
CharlieM,
Even if 100% accuracy is detrimental, that does not mean that the bases mis-replicated are not reasonably described as ‘errors’.
There is in fact an example in his book where NGE makes preferentially useful changes. I’ll let one of his acolytes explain, as it’s a very cool example of NGE.
Shapiro’s NGE toolbox for manipulating genomes includes processes which apply to all cells including germ cells.
As far as I can tell you’re waffling here. In discussing endothermy and giving examples of endothermic animals we can include dogs because all dogs are endothermic, whereas the vast majority of fish are not. (Although it would be wrong to say that endothery is not relevant to fish). Germline alterations are examples of how cells manipulate their genomes. If you want an example of genomes being manipulated by cells which he gives as very relevant to wider evolution them consider endosymbiosis.
Well, seeing that you have included polymerases and ligases in this “toolbox”, that’s quite the exercise in banality you are rocking there. Yes, I concede, germline cells use DNA polymerase and DNA ligase. So what?
ROFL
Of course I was waffling; I was using your moronic analogy. It remains a fact that germ cells are different from somatic cells, and the difference matters. If you want to take examples of things that happen in unicellular organisms or in somatic cells and extend them to germ line cells, then you need some basis for believing that this over-generalization is supportable.
Other than the fact that it makes you feel good.
Shapiro is in fact quite explicit in saying that he has no evidence to support this over-generalization. Put simply, we’ve looked quite carefully, and all we ever found was dysgenesis.
Yes. It’s the only reason Satanists insist on this. Those of you from euro socialist shitholes, do you vote without ID? No, you don’t. WHY?
Of course, your only choice is a sterile little Cesar or an equally sterile nazi hag. So Satan is covered.
The better question is: “why am I talking to turkeys… again? So, never mind.
I’m voting later today on delayed elections.
https://www.gov.uk/how-to-vote
In NI the rules are somewhat different, there you do need ID.
However, I voted at every opportunity in my adult life, both general and local elections and never once have I brought or been asked to show ID.
I know that this fact won’t change your belief however.
Also, in this ex-euro socialist shithole, I don’t have to be afraid for my life from random gunfire. Do you?
Whereas your 2 party system is different how?
Oh, this one is quite simple. We’re probably the only people that don’t simply ignore your ravings. So you are drawn back here, time and time again, despite not making headway because we’re the closest things to friends you have` you poor bastard.
Dummy. The answer is it depends. In my experience, when you vote in your own homeplace, then you don’t need the ID (I have had it with me, but never had to show it), because you know the officials face to face and they know you. Otherwise, if you do not want voter fraud, such as some people going around places and trying to vote several times, then it is actually a good idea to require ID on voting, is it not? Because it is the citizens who should be voting at least on the national level, and how do you determine who is citizen?
It can be somewhat forgiven that Americans have no clue about the outside world. But often enough they have little clue what is going on in their own country and that’s hard to forgive.
Nonlin.org,
Yes, we do (although we’re a right-wing shithole at the moment). I have literally just this minute voted. Tied the dog up outside, told them my name, confirmed my address, voted. No ID. They send a polling card but you don’t need it.
It’s unclear if you don’t have to show it because you know them and they know you, or if you don’t have to show it at all. Which is it?
It might be a ‘good idea’ on the surface, but look under the covers and you’ll find disenfranchisement.
Unless that’s your intended goal, of course.
That determination is made in advance and does not require and ID to vote. In the UK foreign nationals are not sent a polling card for general elections, but they are sent such a card for local elections.
Your system might well be ‘whoever turns up we let them vote’ but here it’s carefully orchestrated such that we already know who is entitled to vote and no ID card required at all at any level. When you enter to vote you are looked up on a list and if you are not there you cannot vote.
What value is ID cards adding to this system, apart from preventing people who cannot obtain one from voting?
Since I have never had to show it, I have not even cared to check up on what the rules specifically are. I assume it makes sense to ask for ID (or the polling card which gets sent to those entitled to it). I assume some people get asked those things. There’s never any problem about it over here though, no BLM or Proud Boys or attacks on the Capitol.
No, the system is exactly NOT meant to be ‘whoever turns up let them vote’. People turn up and they are either entitled to vote or not. How do you determine it on the spot? In my view, it is honest to tell non-entitled people to their face that they are not entitled, instead of disenfranchising them later in the process by cleaning out e.g. votes that are sent in by the wrong mailing system or from certain neighbourhoods, which is how it works in many US states.
Then the rule must be you don’t have to show it, right? Otherwise you’d have been asked to show it by now.
No, as per the link I JUST POSTED you don’t have to bring the polling card OR ANY ID.
Assume away. It’s still incorrect.
That you equate the two tells me all I need to know about you.
Do tell however, what are BLM trying to achieve and why is that a bad thing?
What are the proud boys trying to achieve and why is that a bad thing?
As I already explained, the state already has that information. No ID is asked for, required or needed. Nor any polling card.
Having an ID card does not make you a citizen. Ever heard of forgery?
And you do that by enforcing ID requirements do you? Or do you do it by looking on a list and seeing if they are there or not.
Your position on this seems confused to me. In short ID cards are the tool of racists in the USA to disenfranchise those who those in power would prefer to vote less. It’s quite simple really. Deny if it you will, but as you said:
In my book this makes you a white middle aged male. You’ve never been asked to show your ID so therefore NOBODY EVER HAS. The very definition of privilege.
Oh yes, this kind of list is familiar to me. However, it used to encompass only the district of the particular voting station, so people had to vote either in their particular station or then by other means – online, by mail, or by inviting the officials to their home. Voting is a sufficiently rare thing and I am not a voting official so I don’t know if there have been any developments lately.
My first time voting was when I was 20 and it went as I described. By the way, in most European countries people just are white (exactly like in sub-Saharan Africa people just are black), and immigrants hate the country where I reside, so we remain white for foreseeable generations, because immigrants avoid this country. One might call them racist but I am not that nasty.
Your link applies only to UK. That’s about as tribal as to think in terms of US alone. Luckily I am not living in either of those.
That’s a good point. Any discussion group that continually requires participants to make an effort to understand, even if we don’t gain a complete understanding, is worthwhile. We can make use of the knowledge of specialists.
You highlight nicely the polarity between constructive and destructive forces. Living systems use both of these forces to maintain itself in dynamic balance. Life needs both. And to paraphrase Goethe once again, Nature cares nothing for individuals. Volcanic activity allow fresh new life to seed and thrive by destroying the old.
I take it you are referring to germ line mutations and not to somatic mutations. Somatic mutation rates in mammals are very complex and can vary a fair amount between cell types.
I have found some research which suggests that unicellular organisms are not be as different from multi-cellular organisms as it might appear.
Mutation-rate plasticity and the germline of unicellular organisms
It would appear that, regarding unicellular organisms, it isn’t just a case of reproduction by clonal cell division with mutations spread randomly through the population. There is a very important asymmetry to consider.
Here is another piece of info that I found while looking into mutation rates.
This very recent article entitled, “Microbe in Evolutionary Stasis for Millions of Years” states:
They found populations of these microbes in South Africa, Siberia and California which they believe have been isolated from each other for at least 55 million years. Expecting to be able to study how they had diverged in the interim, they were amazed to find that their genomes were “almost identical”.
The actual paper can be found here. It states:
I thought that radioactivity was supposed to increase mutation rates!
Well, it works for the entire of the UK and millions of people. So it’s fine to have it like that There is almost no fraud the the UK at the individual level.
That’s somewhat of a sweeping statement. I’d probably be more inclined to call you the racist in this situation, I am that nasty! It’s called projection, you ascribe your motivations to their behaviour. All immigrants hate the country where you reside? Do tell, what country would that be?
My point is that when you extrapolate your experience (ID cards are not a problem I don’t even get asked for mine) you are going to miss the nuance of what other people who are not as privileged as you (in whatever way) experience.
Working 60 hour weeks on two jobs then need to travel and queue for 5 hours to get an ID card? Unlikely to happen, right?
Sure, you have a point – in terms of UK. Not everybody is as privileged as to live in UK, so please do not extrapolate. You veer towards being as tribal as Americans.
But it so happens that there is no voter fraud (or reports of fraud or people protesting to get right to vote) in my country either, so we are cool.
I’m taking issue with that statement of yours.
It does not make sense.
It does not have to happen.
It does not prevent fraud.
It only disenfranchises those unable to obtain such ID’s for whatever reason.
Nah, we’re not cool. If someone thinks that the proud boys and BLM are “the same” then we’re not cool at all.
So? The point is that the state knows who is entitled to vote, and those that cannot vote cannot vote. ID cards do not come into it, here or any other country.
Unless, of course, you can point to a country plagued with fraud that solved it via ID cards….
There are plenty of Shapiro’s writings available online without have to get the book. I did read that it is available online free as an e-book but I haven’t managed to find it. If anyone has a link, let us know.
He does supply a list of references he uses in the book here, which is very thorough and informative, and a Huffington Post page here.
Don’t symbiogenesis and horizontal gene transfer feature in the book? I can’t speak for you but I believe these topics are relevant to evolution.
There are different kinds of ID. In this context, the relevant ID is the kind that shows you are a citizen.
In a country plagued with lack of understanding who is eligible to vote – USA being a case in point – making citizenship ID universal and unproblematic is a way to solve the issue. USA has an ever-increasing divisive debate about it, which clearly demonstrates that the country has no clue how to keep a record of its own citizens. Neither my country or yours has any problem with this, but USA does for some stupid reason. By the way, I don’t think there is voter fraud to any significant degree in USA, just self-serving partisan debate.
Whites in USA think they have the God-given right to never show any ID anywhere, but if so, then how to establish in any official context their eligibility to anything? If whites have the God-given right to never show any ID, then everybody else should have the same right, right? But then how do you establish who is the citizen and who is not? By racial profiling “looks foreign, therefore let’s ask for an ID”? I’d say ID should be normal and unproblematic. A real foreigner, an illegal immigrant or such, would not have an ID almost by definition.
The premise to everything is that the country knows who its citizens are. USA apparently does not have the administrative capacity to know. They even doubted if Obama was a citizen, figure that.
If you are referring to the fact that I wrote about cells “using” their genome, I think you have done the same thing. I know other people do it:
In a criticism of Behe, Jerry Coyne writes:
Larry Moran
P.Z.Myers
Writing about molecular evolution
Daniel Dennett writes:
Carl Zimmer
Frontiers
Cells use exosomes to deliver bioactive components for intercellular communication.
Journal Club
Cells use waves to regulate mitosis, suggesting similar wave dynamics as myriad natural phenomena
Posted on December 18, 2017 by Carrie Arnold
If that was not what you were hinting at, perhaps you could clarify.
Sorry about that. I must have scrolled too far when looking at your link.
It’s true that the US lacks the infrastructure to determine whether a person is a citizen, or even whether the name being presented represents a living person.
It’s a rule of thumb that an election needs to be decided by at least half a percent to rule out miscounts without an audit. [More than a rule of thumb. In many states, a close election triggers an automatic recount.]
If the other nations of the world are not using ID to prevent fraud, one has to ask why they use it at all. Or why nations have purple thumbs for voters.
Is the word “use” a magic incantation?
Do cells have homunculi?
I lost the thread.
Did we finish the debate over whether DNA to protein sequence translation is one way?
Complexity, whether a usefully measurable quantity or not, isn’t the point. Somatic mutations are dead ends.
Not sure a debate happened. What certainly hasn’t happened is any example that might indicate that proteins can act as a template for DNA/RNA sequence synthesis, let alone a mechanism.
The snake is still wiggling, but its head is cut off.
NGE is irrelevant to evolution.
Charlie has declared himself comfortable with that, though isn’t quite so keen on its implications vis à vis the position of genetics in causal chains. A lot of the 3rd-wayers like to trumpet how the Dogma has been overturned by this or that discovery. It does not speak well of their grasp (but their overall message is seductive, so they get a pass).
There doesn’t seem to me to be any reason why, in principle, reverse translation should be considered impossible. At least, we can imagine the arrow of time running backwards, with unfolding proteins entering the ribosomal exit-tunnel, the ribosome catalyzing the breaking off of each individual amino acid through a hydrolysis (instead of condensation) reaction.
And I can imagine, at least in principle, a molecular machine that transports codon triplets to the anticodon on tRNA, and the gradual synthesis of an RNA polymer from this “decoding” of the amino acid chain of an unfolded protein.
I suppose the hardest trick in all this is to conceive of a mechanism that could systematically unfold any protein sequence so it could be fed into the reverse-decoding ribosomal machine. But, even that I’m not so sure is really impossible. Couldn’t we imagine a sort of subcellular compartment that goes through cycles of internal conditions that facilitate protein unfolding, by varying things like internal pH, temperature, water activity, and so on?
Now I’m of course virtually certain such a system does not exist anywhere in the universe. But I’m much, much less certain about the idea that it isn’t even physically possible.
Actually come to think of it, in a rather roundabout way reverse translation can be said to already exist in nature. It’s us, human beings. We have the technology with which we can take any given imaginary protein sequence, and then synthesize a correspondingly encoding DNA sequence. Thus the machinery necessary for reverse translation actually exists. It’s humans and their biotechnology. QED.
Well, not irrelevant to evolution, but irrelevant the claim that this is a new paradigm.
Edit:
Somatic processes can create diversity:
Methinks it is like a weasel.
Rumraket,
I think acid side chains are too ‘lumpy’ to be read in this way. The RNA tape is ‘read’ by docking tRNA triplets, and the energy of peptide bond formation is partly derived from the binding energy of complementarity. I can’t envisage an equivalent mechanism going the other way – and since the universe is constrained by what I can envisage, that’s pretty much it! 😉 .
I’m curious about this hypothetical reverse translation. It is my understanding that DNA—>protein translation is difficult to emulate. Would the reverse be similarly difficult, or harder?
The difficulty emulating chemistry seems to reveal something important about reality. I don’t have a good way of expressing this thought.
I think you’re right, it does express something deep. Proteins are synthesised by tacking amino acids on the ‘other end’ of tRNA; the business end of triplet recognition is all nucleic acid-nucleic acid interaction. This is exactly the same base-pairing that underlies replication, and is one of many lines of reasoning arguing for ‘RNA first’. It’s hard in any case to see how organisms without a genome can avail themselves of the persistence and evolutionary opportunities it provides. But circumstantially, I think we are seeing in the modern systems the residue of a primordial state in which RNA has subcontracted many of its former roles, but not the most crucial.
Continuing my ramble:
When I say some process is just chemistry, I am not implying it is billiard ball simple. I’m inclined to think chemistry and physics are turtles all the way down.
When I say NGE looks like another flagellum debate, I simply mean there is nothing about the somatic processes that looks like magic. No homunculus directing the production specific variants.
Doesn’t mean it isn’t cool.
Indeed. The real science is way cooler (my English master is spinning in his grave) than the cargo-cult stuff.
AI is helping in some areas: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03348-4
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 am pretty sure one would be a fool to think Allan Miller or Larry Moran’s attempts to say Shapiro doesn’t understand what he is talking about are in any way whatsoever correct. I have not seen Allan give any evidence that what Shapiro says is untrue. Just him saying, oh I don’t think this is what it means, baloney.
As Shapiro doesn’t seem to have any of the “evolution preacher” baggage of his detractors, his words seem to be a lot stronger than Coyne, Moran or Allan Miller. The fact that Allan Miller goes on Wikipedia trying to change Shapiro’s page tells you exactly what preachers like him (and wikipedia in general) are all about. Unfortunately because wikipedia is controlled by a cabal of atheists, including its founder, they run the site like the good little propagandists they are-so they are free to make any bullshit changes they want, and they can’t be held to account for their preaching.
Its a pretty sickening attempt at controlling science.
phoodoo,
Well, if James Shapiro has some new insight in biology, evidence and then acclaim will follow. Let’s wait and see.
phoodoo,
PS that video is seven years old. No developments since?
Neither rifles nor hand grenades can build things. But they do demonstrate how entities can be used. Rifles can be used to fire at very precise, specific targets whereas hand grenades can be used to cause random death and destruction.
Shapiro does not argue against random mutations which alter genomes. There are very many ways in which DNA sequences are altered, some planned and some unplanned.
Do you think that cells just allow mutations to occur without using inner processes to take measures to control them?
What about other inner processes which manipulate genomes? Do you know the details of the processes involving integrons and shufflons? Crossing over is also one of the many examples of processes that cells use to alter their genomes.
Living systems are constantly having to deal with external influences and forces. If they are to survive they have to be selective in how they control what enters them and how they adapt to changing conditions. They do not passively accept what the external world throws at them. The measures they take fall under what Shapiro calls natural genetic engineering.
This engineering requires neither cells nor the active molecular complexes within them to be conscious agents. A good example from life at a higher level would be constructions by social insects. Their constructions are engineering marvels but they build instinctively, not consciously.
The interpretation of the central dogma as “DNA makes RNA makes protein.” is a very misleading statement. Transcription requires the combined effort of a variety of complex molecules. Even if it cannot be demonstrated that information flows from protein to DNA, activity certainly does flow that way.
DNA is most surely altered by protein complexes, an example of which is DNA repair. Carrying out repair requires combined activity of many complex molecules.
As severe a case of anthropomorphitis as I have witnessed here 🙂
Where does Shapiro equate natural genetic engineering with the conscious engineering of humans? Polar bodies are just as much the product of natural engineering as the cells which may be fertilized. Apoptosis is also an engineered process. Life at higher levels can only persist because it carries death within it at lower levels. Michelangelo could not have carved “David” without leaving waste marble scattered around him. And none of us would be here today if cells within us were not constantly dying.
It’s catching! The last thing we need is an anthropomorphitis pandemic 🙂
What if genetics were not the driver of evolution, but just a link in the drive chain?
Mutations take place despite such. Hence, variation.
Reading Shapiro, he seems to say that organisms initiate mutagenesis.
There are dozens of kinds of mutations, and some are statistically more likely to be benign or useful.
But what he describes is variation and selection.
Ha…I didn’t know people still lived in caves in France.
James Shapiro is a household name.
https://www.google.com/search?q=james%20shapiro&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8