I say no but why do evolutionists?
This is a sly way to demonstrate how unlikely evolutionism is on a probability curve.when on thinks of the millions (billions?) of segregated populations in biology(species) then it should be a high, or respectable percentage, are evolving as we speak to create new populations with new bodyplans to survive in some niche. By high I mean millions, with a allowance for mere hundreds of thousands. YET I am confident there is none evolving today. further i suspect evolutionists would say there is none evolving today. WHY? If not today what about yesterday or 300 years ago? Why couldn’t creationists say its not happening today because it never happened? Its accurate sampling of todays non evolution for predicting none in the past!
i think the only hope (hope?) is if evolutionism said , under pE influence, that all biology today is in the stasis stage and just waiting for a sudden need to change, qickly done, then stasis again. Yet why would it be that stasis has been reached so perfectly today relative to the enormous claim of the need in the past for evolutionism?
Anyways i think creationists have a good point here but willing to be corrected.
CharlieM:
No, this doesn’t follow at all. Also, what I wrote isn’t mere logic, it is a conclusion supported by the data.
See here for some discussion about this. Note the graphs showing how the rate of advent of new genera goes sharply up immediately after each mass extinction, then flattens out again and remains more or less stable until the next extinction event. Note that this doesn not mean that new genera don’t appear in the periods between extinctions, they just appear at a slower rate than in the immediate aftermath.
By the way, the evolution of sight organs didn’t begin with eyes.
But that’s not ‘inheriting a cell’. DNA replicates with each cell division. The daughter cells are furnished with molecules translated from the prior, pre-replication, copy, some of which act on the daughter genomes to extract more. But pretty soon, the molecules in the cell all come from the current copy.
Transplant a genome into a cell, the cell soon takes on the character of the donor genome, not the recipient cell. A lineage derived from such a transplant likewise.
Of course it’s still a ‘succession of cells’. But from LUCA we have gone through significant transitions, including eukaryogenesis, in which mitochondria and probable other ‘cells’ have become domesticated, adding cytoskeletal transport and internal compartmentalisation, and achieving complexities undreamt of by LUCA, some 50,000 times smaller. And sex, where the ancestral ‘haploidy’ of LUCA has been supplanted by diploidy. And multicellularity, where differential gene expression is responsible for a multiplicity of cell types, none of which is remotely like LUCA, and all of which trace back to the genotype of the zygote.
The result is at least 3 genomes in the one cell. This creates numerous additional dynamics which the rather childlike “it’s still cells” picture pointlessly obscures.
I have this argument repeatedly, and I’m not really sure why. The central role of genes in evolution and developmemt is not in dispute, and yet an endless succession of amateurs rails against it. It’s as if ‘reductionism’ has no place in science, despite it being the means by which we got to understand the ‘system’. More sensible, to me, is a pluralist approach, but the central truth remains that genes build cells and bodies. It is definitely not the other way round.
CharlieM,
Sorry, doesn’t matter how often you repeat it, it is a mere analogy, and a poor one.
If you see me as making absolutist statements, you’re probably going out of your way to miss the point. Some companies co-operate, likewise some organisms. Some within-company individuals compete, likewise some genes/cells. Making it an excellent analogy; these exceptions prove the respective rules.
Of course the trouble with gradual macro evolution as it is usually envisioned is that’s it’s not really forward evolution. In essence It is just more of the same. By specialising organisms fill niches that become available and we get an overall red queen effect. Having to change to keep up but getting nowhere in the process.
Evolution took a further step forward when, by means of self-conscious creativity, organisms began to fashion their own niches. Niches that suited them as individuals. Controlling the environment to suit themselves.
Imagine there was a galactic council and a representative arrived here and asked, “Who is in charge here? Who is responsible for this mess? We couldn’t point to the bacteria and say, “It was them, they did it.” We would have to hold our hands up and say, “Yes, it was us. I’m afraid we are responsible”. And this would be followed by that all too human trait, self-conscious blushing. An effect of the ego on the physical body when an unwanted spotlight is directed at it.
So how is the overall balance maintained? Bacterial genomes are far more successful at reproducing themselves than say mammals. Compared to bacteria mammal reproduction is a very slow and laborious way of copying. You would think that bacteria could out-compete any eukaryote on the planet.
It seems that the sexual reproduction and sense systems of eukaryotes were not always as sophisticated as they are today. They evolved from simpler primitive systems. But when it comes to their defence mechanisms, they were sophisticated enough to cope with hostile invaders right from the beginning.
If the Darwinian account is to be believed then it is true that these systems must arise gradually from simple beginnings. What if we don’t start out with this Darwinian belief. What evidence do we have that these systems arise gradually from simple beginnings?
The lengthy piece of mine that Jock linked details a plausible sequence which is pretty much within the ‘Darwinian’ paradigm, accounting for the modern state(s) by stepwise elaboration. Of course, something else entirely may have been the actual case, but it answers the challenge of achieving the modern state ‘gradually’. That is, if it appears possible, you can’t chuck Darwinism out on the grounds that it isn’t.
Evidence abounds, insofar as we have a wide variety of different modes that all contain the same fundamental character, in a vast array of organisms both simple and complex. All eukaryotes appear descended from a sexual LECA. Looking at meiosis-specific genes, they appear to be homologues of each other. Spo11, for example which initiates double strand breaks in crossover, exhibits homology across the eukaryote world (and furthermore appears to be derived from an archaeal Type ll topoisomerase, which is interesting if not strictly relevant).
One could imagine some reason other than common descent for the commonalities, but it suffers both from a lack of parsimony, and a lack of mechanism. We must suppose an unknown force having the capacity to repeatedly initiate the complementary machinery, in group after group, different in detail but using similar base proteins. I don’t really see how that would work, or why one would prefer it.
If they occupied the same niche … eukaryote cells are some 50,000 times the size of bacteria, and tend to have different modes of nutrition. I keep out of digesting nylon, they keep away from chewing steak, we get along just fine.
So in what sense is the recombinant unit “selfish”?
Yes, no genes are bothered about anything. They are passive pieces of genetic material which are used by cellular processes. It is as you say, genes get copied, they do not copy themselves.
i go along with Heraclitus that “everything changes and nothing stands still”. This applies from atoms, to life, to the universe; from an organism to the biosphere. Over a millisecond, a year, a millennium or longer, everything changes. Make of that what you will.
This is only a trouble if you think that evolution has, should have, or must have, a direction.
It is a metaphor. By being exposed separately by repeat rounds of recombination, a genetic unit acts ‘as if’ it has volition, by integrating more frequently into its locus within the wider population than ‘rival’ sequences. Sometimes its action is by benefitting the ‘host’, sometimes (e.g. transposons etc) it can generally be detrimental to the host, but spreads anyway, on its own account.
It can be useful to turn things round in that way, to look at matters from the gene’s perspective.
It is a metaphor
Where do those ‘cellular processes’ come from?
They kind of do. DNA polymerase is produced from a gene. Among the genes it copies is that for DNA polymerase. Ditto for transcription and translation.
So, the so-called scientific method can be discarded…
What remains? Speculations…
For example:
Why would an asexual system of reproduction, where 1 life-system “simply” divides into 2, evolve into 2 life-system genetic information combination?
The processes involved in the combining of a half of genetic information from female, and the other half from male counterparts, and form one, are mightily complex and awe-inspiring…They are also costly, presenting evolutionary theory with gigantic obstacles …
The belief that such an achievement has been accomplished due to unintelligent processes requires a leap of faith beyond any miracles described in the Bible…
And? Have you been able to “create” a new kind of bug out of the Drosophila???
Please say you were smarter than sheer dumb luck + natural selection…
Never mind. Everyone knows the obvious answer… 🙂
Like ID you mean? LMAO.
(Edit: Removed original response; I’d misread).
It’s all in the paper!
Males and females are waaaay in the future, from the point of view of originating sex, as indeed are multicellular modes in general. Most sexual organisms don’t have males and females.
Which starting with the haploid neatly sidesteps. Starting with the diploid, and assuming it is a unit with evolutionary ‘interests’, is where the trouble starts. I do go into this in some detail, you know …
Yeah, whatevs.
So, at least we agree on one aspect: both should not be called science…
One problem solved!
So, this has potential to be replicated in the lab… Ask Corneel 😉
It’s getting even easier than I thought… lol
To be more precise, this is where all troubles start and everything ends…
Yeah… it is a shame… such a good idea… 🙂
At least you believe in some kind of miracles…
Some materialists here have abandoned their beliefs in creative powers of thermal vents and bolt of lighting…
Can you believe this???!!lol
Don’t be silly. Drosophilids are in Diptera, not Hemiptera.
Actually, I’m not the one arguing that science should only be done in labs; you are. You are throwing ID under the bus by that stance.
In reality, science is also done by examining the results of investigations, not merely by ‘investigating’. Einstein never spent 2 seconds doing ‘science’, by your view of the method.
Worth noting that the twofold cost view that I’m criticising and you willingly accept did not come out of lab investigation either. But of course you swallow it whole, and uncritically, in your haste to ‘beat’ an opponent on the internet.
Nope. My ‘speculations’ are rooted firmly in biology. I mean, if you have a specific critique, have at it, but all this “lol speculation you believe in miracles” malarkey is a bit pathetic, as critiques go.
Except you can’t tell the age of an atom, or one from another*.
*If they are atoms of the same isotope.
I think you are taking Captain Quantum slightly too serious. He appears to be in trolling mode today 🙂
What, just today? 🤣
What a shame…
Nothing was proven even in the lab… beyond what was already well known… before all this work was done…
All this work with hybrids and all for nothing…
I have read somewhere they make hybrid cars today, so there may be something to your theory that cars are like lifeforms.
Well, your work isn’t done in the lab and who is going to test it really? ID? 😉
They have done work with enzymes but nobody liked it..Some said they have already reached the end of evolution but others didn’t like the way the experiments were done but didn’t evolve them in their lab either…It’s had to please materialists, you know… 🙂
Others did it for him, including the math lol
Better still the results look funky 😉
Just read the papers against it with an open mind if that is even possible… 😉
Really? Biology, as you see it? 😉
No but others have done it.
I just happen to be a realist when it come to what even an omnipotent natural selection can do… lol
Just substitute quantum with onnipotent + natural selection.
You’d get the point 🙂
Do they self-assemble?
I’m not sure how you can justify life persisting for billions of years, with constant transferals and throughput of energy and materials in to, out of and between its constituent systems, without some form of self regulation.
Just read my critique of those very papers with an open mind if that is even possible dot-dot-dot lol wink emoji.
If you see somewhere I’ve got the biology wrong, feel free to pipe up.
And you side with them? On what grounds?
Well, I can, so there you go. I see no reason to suppose that some mysterious force is ‘running the biosphere’. How, when and why does it operate? What would happen if it stopped?
Ah, Ok.
What do you make of this?
” Producing Variable Offspring Can Hinder the Evolution of Sex
Interestingly, even when sex does restore genetic variation, producing more variable offspring does not necessarily promote the evolution of sex. Again, this reality refutes one of the arguments often raised in the attempt to explain the relationship between sex and evolution. To understand how this operates, consider another simple case involving a single gene, but this time, assume that heterozygotes (rather than homozygotes) are fittest. The gene responsible for sickle-cell anemia provides a great real-life example. Here, people who are heterozygous for the sickle-cell allele (genotype Ss) are less susceptible to malarial infection yet have a sufficient number of healthy red blood cells; on the other hand, SS homozygotes are more susceptible to malaria, while ss homozygotes are more susceptible to anemia. Thus, in areas infested with the protozoans that cause malaria, adults who have survived to reproduce are more likely to have the Ss genotype than would be expected based on Hardy-Weinberg proportions. In such populations in which heterozygotes are in excess, sexual reproduction regenerates homozygotes from crosses among heterozygotes. Although this indeed results in greater genetic variation among offspring, the variation consists largely of homozygotes with low fitness.
Yet again, this simple example illustrates a more general point: Parents that have survived to reproduce tend to have genomes that are fairly well adapted to their environments. Mixing two genomes through sex and genetic recombination tends to produce offspring that are less fit, simply because a mixture of genes from both parents has no guarantee of functioning as well as the parents’ original gene sets. In fact, mathematical models have confirmed that when selection builds associations among genes, destroying these associations through sex and recombination tends to reduce offspring fitness. This reduction in fitness caused by sex and recombination is referred to as the “recombination load” (or the “segregation load” when referring specifically to segregation at a single diploid gene).
The reason that the recombination load is a problem for the evolution of sex is better appreciated by looking at evolution at the level of the gene. Imagine a gene that promotes sexual reproduction, such as by making it more likely that a plant will reproduce via sexually produced seeds as opposed to some asexual process (e.g., budding, asexual seeds, etc.). Carriers of this gene will tend to produce less fit offspring because sexual reproduction and recombination break apart the genetic associations that have been built by past selection. The gene promoting sex will fail to spread if the offspring die at too high a high rate, even if the offspring are more variable. Indeed, theoretical models developed in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrate that genes promoting sex and recombination increase in frequency only when all of the following conditions hold true:
The population is under directional selection. (This means that increased variation can improve the response to selection.)
Fitness surfaces are negatively curved. (This means that sex and recombination can restore variation eliminated by past selection.)
The surface curvature is not too strong. (If too strong, the recombination load is severe).
Unfortunately, empirical data have not indicated that fitness surfaces curve in just the right way for these models to work in real-life situations.
I have…
Your “buddy” C. Venter has been trying to prove what you have speculated about but.. you know what it’s like with those experiments trying to replicate omnipotence of natural selection…
He got stuck on restriction enzymes the more stuff… 🙂
Not really…
“Sex Can Be Too Costly to Evolve
To make matters worse, sexual reproduction often entails costs beyond the recombination load described earlier. To reproduce sexually, an individual must take the time and energy to switch from mitosis to meiosis (this step is especially relevant in single-celled organisms); it must find a willing mate; and it must risk contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Moreover, an individual that reproduces sexually passes only half of its genes to its offspring, whereas it would have transmitted 100% of its genes to progeny that were produced asexually. (This last cost is often called the “twofold cost of sex.”) Thus, unless the individual’s sexual partner contributes enough resources to double the number of offspring, an organism that reproduces sexually passes on fewer copies of its genes than an organism that reproduces asexually.
These are substantial costs—so substantial that many species have evolved mechanisms to ensure that sex occurs only when it is least costly. For instance, organisms including aphids and daphnia reproduce asexually when resources are abundant and switch to sex only at the end of the season, when the potential for asexual reproduction is limited and when potential mates are more available. Similarly, many single-celled organisms have sex only when starved, which minimizes the time cost of switching to meiosis because mitotic growth has already ceased.
Although various mechanisms might reduce the costs of sex, it is still commonly assumed that sex is more costly than asexual reproduction, raising yet another obstacle for the evolution of sex.”
J-Mac,
I discuss precisely these arguments in my paper. You’re just Googling up stuff you don’t understand.
What on earth are you trying to say here? You know name-dropping is not actually an argument, don’t you?
Really?
In which paper?
The one that failed?
Or in the one that you will try to explain why the previous one had failed?
They are pretty similar, except that the revision I’m currently working on is trying to make it more accessible to a general audience. An audience prepared to put at least a modicum of effort in, that is …
When that happens, and if it is worth my time, I will try to take it apart…
Hope you don’t mind? 😉
This is what’s on my mind now:
“Blood contains circulating cell‐free respiratory competent mitochondria”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1096/fj.201901917RR
Nothing new but the application to my work is worthwhile…
Of course not. Although I’d hope, without hope, that it might rise above your usual ‘lol Venter speculation …’ mode of argumentation.
Good!
Venter, unlike you, is an experimental scientist who put to the experimental test your speculations about the genetic code…
I went a bit further pointing out the genetic code is optimal…as per the execution of the quantum algorithm…
Just make sure this time you don’t omit important factors that could prevent the fusion of genomes because I will be all over it, with, or without Venter… lol
Where did he publish this research?
To be honest… 😉
I’m not sure because I’ve heard it from him first hand…
I’m sure you know how to google…
Try his website https://www.jcvi.org/about/jventer
i.e. synthetic bacteria/anti-aging…
I’m leaving the office now, so I will try to find it when I get home…
ETA: Koonin also publishes something on the genetic code you probably would not like to see
The hilarious thing here is that neither of the two lengthy quotes J-mac uses to undermine my ‘speculations’ on sex is based upon empirical work. Segregation and recombination load, and the twofold costs of males and meiosis, are primarily theoretical. But j-mac suddenly doesn’t mind about that.
Not that Mycoplasma thing with Dawkins, surely?
Yep. Drew a blank.
I asked your opinion…
There are questions there that seem contradictory to what evolutionary theory claims…
Don’t worry! I will look into it one day lol
No. That was just a hint. I had known before because of my business contacts…
This is a problem with speculative science like yours. You can neither in theory, nor in theory, disprove Venter because nobody cares what you have to say…
I don’t know why you feel the need to phrase everything in such a snide manner. If Koonin has a perspective, and it’s better than mine, I’m open to persuasion.
So far, Venter’s research appears to be lacking a form I could even address, let alone ‘prove’. A citation would be useful.
The costs come from evolutionary theory. I am critical of that aspect of theory. You should be pleased! Not the first time I’ve seen a Creationist try and use a result of evolutionary theory to argue against evolutionary theory.
Yeah, like you’re qualified to assess Alan’s work, LMFAO
Self awareness is not your forte, that’s for sure 🤣
Sure, We all believe you. We do.
What is your line of business?
Indeed, both individuals and the biosphere are made of matter. But it is matter which is constantly changing. They maintain their existence not by retaining matter, but by taking in and discarding matter in a coordinated and balanced way.
To return to your “company” analogy, Ford is a company comprising individual workers. None of the current workers were pat of the company one hundred years ago. The essential nature of the company is something which lies above its individual constituents.
You imply that any and every connection between entities must involve physical contact. Yet here we are, us puny humans, connecting with each other over distances spanning the planet. If its a cohesive whole of connected organisms that you seek take a look at the Amazon rain forest with its system of waterways merging into the Amazon and returning to the ocean like the blood flowing through an organ via its system of capillaries and veins finally through the vena cava back to the heart to be recycled. It just takes us to open our eyes and our minds to see the whole reflected in the parts.
An individual organism is not a cellular mass glued together, it comprises a constant flow of material. There will be many molecules within your bodily tissues that, not so long ago, were within plants and in the not to distant future will have been recycled back to the wider nature from whence they came. Your body is not a lump of cohesive substances, it is a dynamic system in which all the substances that are required are constantly condensing in multiple crystallisation like processes and then dispersing into the wider world
.
Here is an explaination from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the subject of Heraclitus:
How do we conceive of living and dying if not by the concentration and dissolution of parts at all levels. We have living and dying within us constantly as cells and substances die and are replaced. Species have living and dying constantly within them as individual organisms die and are replaced. Rain forests have living and dying constantly within them as the animals and plants within them die and are replaced.
All of these examples exist in dynamic equilibrium by carrying these living and dying process within them. Until, that is, the whole can no longer maintain the equilibrium and it eventually dies. The planet has vital organs just like we as individuals do, and the rain forest is one of them.
The rationale lies in the fact that the entity (the biosphere in this case) exists through maintaining a dynamic balance among its parts which come and go throughout its existence. These need not be conscious processes. We have very little conscious awareness of the processes that are keeping us in existence.