This is one of the most fundamental mysteries of evolution and the origins of multicellular life often called endosymbiosis, which is supposed to explain the origin of eukaryotic cell.
It doesn’t! Here is why…
What I found perplexing, or even disturbing, is that although it is presented as scientific fact of evolution, as evolution itself often is, there is absolutely not one fact to support that endosybiosis happened or could have happened…
And this the fact…
How could that be?
First of all, the difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell is so staggering that even proposing such quantum leap in evolutionary change goes beyond macroevolutionary claim…
Here are some facts:
Prokaryotic cell above vs Eukaryotic cell below
Dr. Gauger at evolutionnews.org wrote a really good article on the miraculous appearance of the many structures in eukaryotic cells not found in prokaryotic cells that had to have evolved if endosymbiosis were true, such nucleus, mitochondria, etc…
“…There is no single proposed mechanism for the evolution of the nucleus or the other structures…” – wrote Dr. Gauger
However disturbing the theory of endosymbios already is, which makes one wonder how far and how deep preconceived ideology can reach, and the acceptance of evolution, common descent, the tree of life…right or wrong…
However…there is even more to it…
In his paper “Uprooting the Tree of Life” W. F. Doolitle destroys the preconceived and fundamental dogma of evolutionary theory – the so called Darwin’s Tree of Life (which is worth another OP). His ammunition is mainly the horizontal gene transfer…but there is another thing that is very profound…
You can read about it here:
http://labs.icb.ufmg.br/lbem/aulas/grad/evol/treeoflife-complexcells.pdf
On page marked 94 of the paper I linked above, Doolitle writes about the origin of eukaryotic genes:
“…Many eukaryotic genes turn out to be unlike those of
any known archaea or bacteria; they seem to have come from nowhere.”
So, if eukaryotic cell evolved from prokaryotic cells, via the process of endosymbiosis, as evolutionists claim, not only there is not a single evolutionary mechanism to explain rather miraculous appearance of the many structures not found in prokaryotes, that exist in eukaryotes, like nucleus, mitochondria etc. they don’t have many genes to account for in the supposed evolution of eukaryotes…
This is not a joke! It’s real...
Will these very facts overturn the evolutionary thinking and bring down the theory of evolution? One would hope… but of course not…
If it were to happen, it would have happened in 2000 when Doolitle published the world acclaimed findings about the horizontal gene transfer and the mysterious genes nowhere to be found if endosymbiosis is true…
Why?
As someone once said:
“…No amount of evidence disproving evolution will convince it’s faithful followers that the theory is wrong…”
If you don’t believe these words, just watch the comments below on how the faithful will post excuses to make them feel good and secure in their preconceived set of beliefs…
Let Darwin of the gaps begin…
God help us!
BTW: I’m willing to bet all my money that nobody can experimentally prove that endosymbiosis of prokaryotic cells to eukaryotic is possible… How could it be possible if many of the genes aren’t accounted for? Maybe gene-spermia happened? 😉
I’m pretty sure that Darwin’s faithful are willing to believe any nonsense… as long as they can pretend that the-long-dead theory of evolution is alive and kept on the respirator…for as long as possible…lol
Not sure from the OP what your beef is, but endosymbiosis is common as mud. Perhaps you could start with learning a bit about the intracellular parasite Wolbachia.
So what is supposed to be so mysterious about endosymbiosis?
By the way, Wolbachia, a modern-day intracellular endosymbiont , is a member of the class of alpha-proteobacteria. Can you guess in which bacterial class mitochondrial genomes are placed by phylogenomic analyis?
Corneel,
Chunks of the Wolbachia genome are found in the nuclear DNA. If one believes all that common-sequence = common-descent nonsense, anyway 😉
Many of the characteristics of Wolbachia parallel those of mitochondria in terms of their preference for ‘female’ lineages. Sperm are too small to hold many of ’em, so Wolbachia are selected to act against this route, by all possible mechanisms – male killing, feminisation, parthenogenesis, cytoplasmic incompatibility. There is a very good evolutionary explanation for this behaviour, in all cases. Design, not so much.
What, are you saying the *ALAKAZAM* hypothesis lacks explanatory power?
Moved a couple of comments to guano. Please attack ideas (or lack of them) to your heart’s content but try and remain civil to fellow members.
The most detailed creationist hypothesis ever offered for the origin of eukaryotic transcription and translation (in that I’m the first(?) to actually make a diagram of the order and details of creation):
Not nearly as much as the “designed to appear evolved” hypothesis.
Which has only failed to prevail due to flagrant persecution of alternative theories.
Glen Davidson
This is a moderation issue so I’ll respond in that thread.
“There is no single proposed mechanism for the evolution of the nucleus or the other structures I have named.” – Ann Gauger.
Google: origin of cell nucleus
Find:
Origin of the cell nucleus, mitosis and sex: roles of intracellular coevolution
Thomas Cavalier-Smith
Biol Direct. 2010; 5: 7.
Published online 2010 Feb 4. doi: 10.1186/1745-6150-5-7
Functional evolution of nuclear structure
Katherine L. Wilson and Scott C. Dawson
Journal of Cell Biology; doi: 10.1083/jcb.201103171
Evolutionary origin of the cell nucleus and its functional architecture
Jan Postberg, Hans J. Lipps, Thomas Cremer
Essays In Biochemistry Sep 20, 2010, 48 1-24; DOI: 10.1042/bse0480001
Evolution of the nucleus
Damien P Devos. Ralph Gräf. Mark C Field.
Current Opinion in Cell Biology Volume 28, June 2014, Pages 8-15 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceb.2014.01.004
…among a hundred others at least.
This is textbook Gauger. Just say demonstrably false bullshit and rely on your audience’s failure to check.
Here’s a paper that reviews several different hypotheses for the origins of eukaryotes (including the nucleus):
Endosymbiotic theories for eukaryote origin.
Martin W F, Garg S, Zimorski V.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2015 Sep 26;370(1678):20140330. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0330.
There’s a nice big figure that gives a quick overview of some of the various hypotheses for the origin of the nucleus:
Moved A comment to guano.
@ Glen
You raise substantive issues. I’ll copy and respond in the moderation issues thread.
Also worth a look is the Ignicoccus hospitalis / Nanoarchaeum equitans example of ectosymbiosis between two archaeal species. ATP is exported, and there is evidence of gene migration. It is hardly the stretch of a lifetime to suspect that such an association could become intimate due to translocation of the smaller across the membrane of the larger (although in this instance, ATP is exported by the larger).
The issue with adding one thing at a time in the case of protein initiation or any system with such deep integration, is a mis-placed part results in death. If something is dead, it doesn’t replicate. End of story.
The appeals to some unknown, undefined, ancestor proceeding by unknown unverifiable steps by unverifiable untestable mechanisms by remote probability sounds little different than appealing to God or ghosts. So again, evolutionary theory only pretends to be naturalistic, when after the actual accounting is done it looks more like a supernaturalistic theory to effect transformations.
Regarding for example the Intiation Factors, they either connect to the complex in some particular order or they don’t. Those are discrete components and in discrete spatial positions. At the chemical nano-level things are either their or not. It’s not like something like body weight that can undergo gradual transition. Because of that discrete quality, transitions from a supposed ancestor will be fraught with the problem of having dead transitionals along the way because simultanoues changes are needed.
If evolutionists want to keep appealing to unknown, unknowable, untestable, unprovable, improbable, unlikely, implausible mechanism, that’s fine. Just stop pretending it’s an actual mechanistic theory rather than wishful thinking, because that’s what it is, and that makes it little different from creationism. The only difference is creationists are more up front about admitting miracles. Evolutionists “pray” and hope and pretend it wasn’t miraculous, yet they can never formally demonstrate or make a compelling case the transformations are highly plausible.
Sorry but Behe’s “Irreducible Complexity” brain fart was refuted a decade ago.
The only piece you got right in that blithering was the “unknown” part. The rest is your ignorance-based and personal incredulity. Sorry but “Sal thinks so” isn’t a good enough reason to replace 150+ years of evolutionary evidence with “MAGIC!”
Has anyone ever tried to explain the differing protein synthesis initiation by endosymbiosis? Why should it? As far as I know, endosymbiosis has been proposed to explain mostly the origin of mitochondria and plastids, and why there are so many bacterial genes in eukaryote nuclear genomes. Why should we expect it to explain every single feature of eukaryotes?
If you reject the endosymbiosis theory, I would like to know your explanation for the similarities between mitochondria and alpha proteobacteria and between plastids and cyanobacteria. Coincidence? “Common design”?
God did it.
I know that was intended as a joke, but that’s really all you have, isn’t it?
God did it…. 6000 years ago!
Not necessarily a bad initial answer, if you had good reasons for us to believe it.
Glen Davidson
Rumraket,
I really like this. It also satisfies your Occum’s razor argument 🙂
If not, let’s see the experiment that endosymbiosis of eukaryotes happened…
Almost forgot… some genes are not accounted for…pity..such a good idea to refute “God did it”…
vjtorley and others.
I don’t think there’s any doubt now that the endosymbiotic theory is correct. The Lipscomb page which you link doesn’t present any evidence for an alternative, it just shows some of the evidence for endosymbiosis isn’t that strong. None of Diana Lipscomb’s work suggests she supports an alternative and so I have a feeling that page is very old. It was probably created prior to the discovery of lokiarcheota which are archebacteria which have some intermediate traits with eukaryotes and prior to the large scale analysis of eukaryotes which suggests they are essential a fusion of an archea and bacteria genomes.
I think you’ll find a few topics particularly interesting and relevant. There are several algal groups which show secondary and tertiary endosymbiosis ( such as chlorarachniophytes). These are cells which essentially have a ‘Russian doll” configuration after 2 additional rounds of endosymbiosis. Do a separate search on “nucleomorph”. These are degenerate remnant nuclei from the eukaryotic cell that was engulfed.
You might want to also look up Paulinella. This is a genus of amoeba that acquired and algal symbiont a few million years ago. It shows the very early stages of what must have happened 1.5 billion years ago.
Rumraket,
So now you’re supporting the ‘POOF’ hypothesis? C’mon, make up your mind; is it POOF or ALAKAZAM? When you can’t even find a consistent definition, your theory is evidently in deep trouble and should stop being taught immediately.
stcordova,
I don’t see anything there that refutes the possibility. It is completely, irretrievably tied with the mechanism of evolution that intermediates are lost, unless there is an extant side-lineage in which they are preserved. So it requires no particular faith to consider that the end result of an evolutionary trajectory would be something that the ignorant might claim miraculous pending proof. How do we eliminate the possibility that this is what we are looking at? Sal Sez isn’t much, even when VJT, J-Mac et al take the third above and third below, with phoodoo the baritone.
Certainly, you need a miracle to get all the carbon into the limestone. But eukaryotes? No, I honestly don’t see the requirement for a miracle there.
RodW,
“…large scale analysis of eukaryotes which suggests they are essential a fusion of an archea and bacteria genomes..
Is this what you call no doubt? Suggestions? Some evidence…as you see it…
Can’t argue with that!
If God did it, why did he do it like that? Why did he make it an inescapable conclusion that endosymbiosis occurred if endosymbiosis did not, in fact, occur?
Just because you don’t understand why something was done in certain way, it doesn’t make it wrong…
All you have to do is show that random processes can do the same …since you can’t seem to replicate what they have apparently done…
J-Mac,
Just because intermediates are missing doesn’t mean they were never there, if we are playing the ‘just because’ game.
Generate a miracle.
The point, though, is that we may legitimately ask why God would want us to believe it was endosymbiosis. It’s not that there is no evidence that it was endosymbiosis but we cling to the idea anyway. Evidently God wants us to believe in evolution, because he has planted such extensive evidence of it. Endosymbiosis directly explains why we have an apparent instance of an achaeon swallowing an alpha proteobacterium. God’s whim doesn’t.
stcordova,
stcordova,
Sal,
Evolutionists “pray” and hope and pretend it wasn’t miraculous, yet they can never formally demonstrate or make a compelling case the transformations are highly plausible.
This is what faith is at its best…blind one of course… I show examples of that to my kids and my students as proof of such and how easily one can be deceived into false belief and actually lie to him/herself…
It’s a test.
If you fall for the evidence you win intellectually, but lose religiously. Like you were made to think…
Glen Davidson
He didn’t…and I agree with Him…until you show otherwise obviously…You are mistaking your own preconceived idea with the actual facts… Just because endosymbiosis idea arose out of pure need to fit evolutionary thinking, without which evolution has no foundation past prokayotes, God should be blamed for you being deceived by this idea…should He?
I guess that teaching by example works best…
Glen Davidson
Well, as with any chemical interaction, they might be there some of the time.
Crack a book on enzyme kinetics, perhaps.
J-Mac,
So if one has extensive direct and evidence of alpha-proteobacterial origin of mitochondria, and cyanobacterial origin of chloroplasts, one is acting with blind faith in concluding that these apparent origins are actual origins? That’s just silly.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1.1.
I see your point.
A friendly reminder of who you’re dealing with, Allan
J-Mac,
Preconceived? On your bike. Endosymbiosis was controversial when I was at university. It became accepted because of accumulated evidence that was predicted by it. Evidence which, so far, you haven’t come close to even looking at. Because of your preconceived notions.
dazz,
Heh! They all merge into one after a while.
Allan Miller,
J-Mac and others can ignore evidence when it comes in the form of sequence comparisons etc. But there are forms or evidence which just stare you in the face and are impossible to ignore. This is why I asked them to look up ‘nucleomorph’
Attacking credentials instead of evidence? I think I’ve seen this tactic before…
Way to go!
It must be really helping your case… 😉
Why are the different patterns the way they are? No details.
Can you predict a branching order of certain genes? No details.
Why is it the way it is? No details.
Why not just use the exact same cytochrome C gene sequence in all animals on Earth? No details.
For all of the above, the answer is without content and amounts to:
But postulates an unobserved mechanism and makes no predictions. So while it is simple, it has zero explanatory power and is completely untestable.
RodW,
Yep – I mentioned the ‘Russian doll’ thing myself. My bet is that J-Mac didn’t trouble himself to look up ‘nucleomorph’! It’s just classic ‘help me out here, I’m a bit confused’ posturing.
Ah, my apologies. I started reading the comments but most of it seemed to be name calling back and forth. I should have read all of them.
RodW,
No, no, you were wise to scroll! I myself flip between the substantive and the jeering!
As Newton stated: “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.”
Sufficient, that’s kind of a big deal.
Saying “omnipotent” doesn’t really demonstrate sufficiency either.
Glen Davidson
You would first need to understand what counts as evidence for a theory, which you obviously don’t, and also why it’s important to understand the theory and it’s entailments, and of course, what entailments are and why entailments are crucial.
If I was to pull the same nonsense on you I could probably do something like demand live footage of Jesus pole dancing as evidence that he was a gay stripper in Sodom as convincing evidence for Christianity
There have been 98 comments on this OP so far but I only see 72…
Some must be wasting a lot of time trying to insult me… 😉