Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution

by zagor 142 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  LittleToe

  Getting back to basics, are you aware that DNA is made up on merely four encoding molecules? Even though it is so simple, at the building block level, copying mistakes still happen. Even one single mistake can affect the whole package, as evidenced in your own condition.

  As an analogy, copying mistakes have been made with the bible that have led to vastly different conclusions being arrived at when examining the whole corpus. The result can be a completely different denomination, and a war. Something similar can occur with genetics.

  If enough offspring, containing the "mistake" survive, this can eventually reach a critical mass of a distinct sub-species.

  Bear in mind that we have so much DNA in our bodies that it is more likely that there will be many errors, rather than just one, and that this is multiplied by every person and every child. The bundle of mistakes that you carry can be joined with the bundle of mistakes that your spouse carries, resulting in children with their own unique bundle of mistakes.

  Just to add another factor into the pot - every time you are infected with a virus the virus alters part of the DNA within the cells that it infects, with a greater or lesser affect on your wellbeing, but you don't remain unchanged by the event. That is how a virus propagates. It causes your body to create more copies of itself, instead of resuming normal functions.

  This repeats ad nauseum.

  Science has described this in a theory, which it continues to test. The evidence thusfar shows that it is the most likely explanation. The evidence doesn't contradict this explanation, otherwise it would have been discarded long ago.
• 

  TD

  Kate,

  I think many of the problems that arise in these type of discussions revolve around varying definitions of terms on the part of the various participants.

  What does the term "species" mean to you?

  Would you consider the glyptodon, the short faced bear, giant sloth, the mammath, smilodon, etc. to be different species of mammals than what we know today?
• 

  Leolaia

  So shouldn't we see positive PROOF that species can pop up? How can DNA just appear with new information out of nowhere? Again, doesn't DNA replicate? Genetic alterations? Show me.

  Fortunately thanks to genomic analysis, we can now do phylogenetic comparisons of DNA across related species and eventually we will be able to understand more precisely how the genetic changes occurred that differentiated related species and genera, in what order, and so forth. We are really at the cusp of a revolution in our ability to understand how evolution works at the genetic level. Just give it some time. But already since the 1990s, there have been many studies that show how major genetic changes occur in macroevolution...see the examples presented earlier (in part via my links) of icefish, color vision in primates, and the Hox gene cluster in zebrafish and pufferfish. It has been demonstrated via these studies that new functions arise time and again in mutations.

  The research done on fruit flys for example. I don't know the number but after many many generations of them trying to artificially create a new species it could not be done.

  That was not the purpose of the fruit fly experiments. Notice, for instance, that these experiments lack the needed time depth and input from natural selection. Despite your general suspicion of Watchtower teachings, you still accept many of their claims at face value when it pertains to evolution:

  http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Fruit_fly_experiments_produce_only_fruit_flies
• 

  funkyderek

  LittleToe:

  Sorry pal, but I entirely disagree. Kate never claimed to be an expert, and it was obvious from her posts that she wasn't giving a textbook explanation.

  I must continue to disagree. Somebody who claims to have done in depth research on a subject cannot expect to make such glaring and fundamental mistakes without being called on it. And anybody who claims the Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves evolution is fair game in my book. She was claiming to have expert knowledge, and made claims about evidence that were untrue and quite ridiculous. Further, she ignored information that would have corrected her viewpoint. Kid-A didn't just attack some novice for the hell of it. Her claims were quite absurd and deserved a WTF.
• 

  LittleToe

  IMHO not everything in life needs jumping on. Sometimes it's acceptable to have a wry grin and politely state something accurately, letting discerning folks draw their own conclusions (e.g. Leo's response). Situations rarely require the kind of reply that Kate received from Kid, and once more IMHO it was inappropriate on this occasion.

  We'll have to agree to disagree. I can live with that.
• 

  zagor

  I posted this article not only because of some tangible evidence being presented but also because it was bound to initiate some hot debate. It is really interesting seeing EVOULTION of this thread few days down the track. It had taken on life of its own. It is really interesting seeing evolution all around us
• 

  LittleToe

  B*st*rd!

  LOL
• 

  Apostate Kate

  Somebody who claims to have done in depth research on a subject

  My depth of research may not be as deep as a research scientist, and I don't remember details as well as others, does not mean that I am incapable of learning and coming to a conclusion. I came to my conclusions and it has nothing to do with the WT.

  Many of you conclude it must be fact since it looks like it probably is.

  We are really at the cusp of a revolution in our ability to understand how evolution works at the genetic level. Just give it some time.

  I am not convinced. I do not see a natural world where oganisms are in constant fluctuation between species. I see a world full of individual plants and animals that when an error in their genetic code happens, most often you see a negative problem. Common sense says that there would be transitional spcies everywhere! The mighty colecanth once throught extinct and mutated into a trout by now was found alive and well.

  Leolai the one link you posted was not in a language that I could understand without weeks of research into what each word means.

  OMG scientists have been using fruit flies to study genetics in evolution for over 90 years! And let me make myself CLEAR. I do NOT nor have I read any WT material for 15 years.

  The "Fly People" Make History

  Do you really think that a genetic scientist has not hoped to find evidence of evolution into another species in all these years of fruit fly research?

  "The first mutant fruit fly on record is a white-eyed fly that the legendary Thomas Hunt Morgan spotted in his "fly room" at Columbia University in 1910. But as early as 1907, Frank Lutz of the Carnegie Institution was remarking to his friends that his flies had "started to do tricks with their [wing] veins" (the prominent veins that form patterns on their wings), and in 1908 he observed dwarf flies among his cultures."
• 

  Leolaia

  I do not see a natural world where oganisms are in constant fluctuation between species. I see a world full of individual plants and animals that when an error in their genetic code happens, most often you see a negative problem.

  A species is an interbreeding population of individuals who vary genomically between each other. Genetic variation or "fluctuation" as you put it is an intrinsic property of a species...otherwise we'd all be identical clones. Mutation is simply a fancy term for a new genetic variant. It happens all the time in the replication of DNA... the process is not 100% perfect. Although you certainly believe that most mutations are harmful, this is simply not true. Most have no immediate consequence at all.... just as a single typo usually does not make a lengthy book unintelligible. Often the mutation only slightly alters the gene's function, or a new function does not arise until the mutation has been exaptated. Saying that mutations are "mostly" harmful by citing only those that have negative consequences is like saying that air travel is "mostly" unsafe by only citing instances of plane crashes. Harmful mutations are usually eliminated anyway through natural selection. Here is an essay that goes into this matter in further detail: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html.

  Since a species is an interbreeding population, what happens when that population segments into dichotomous populations in different ecological niches (which require different adaptations)? With the original gene pool split apart, the new populations would naturally drift genetically in different directions (accumulating new mutations and generalizing older ones in new ways through adaptation) .... obviously since mixing between populations would not occur. This is exactly what happens in language as well, and perhaps it is easier to grasp with "common sense" what happens in language without needing to learn any sophisticated genetic/biological terminology. It is pretty much common sense that not everyone speaks alike (i.e. linguistic variation between speakers of a single language), and that languages split apart and develop new daughter langauges over hundreds of years (like French and Italian being descended from Latin). The "speciation" of new dialects and languages occurs especially when a group of speakers moves to a new environment where they are isolated from the original population (such as Brazilian Portuguese, or Mexican Spanish, or Spanish itself -- which derives from an Iberian form of Latin).

  Common sense says that there would be transitional spcies everywhere!

  Common sense says that everything that exists today is transitional between what it was yesterday and what it would be tomorrow. But the species that exist in the present are not necessarily representative of "transitions" in the past....species go extinct and species change. To go back to my language example, no one speaks Middle English or Vulgar Latin anymore. But those languages were "transitional" between the English and Spanish of today and the Anglo-Saxon and classical Latin of yesterday. But because you can't find anyone speaking Vulgar Latin today doesn't mean that it never existed in the past.

  The mighty colecanth once throught extinct and mutated into a trout by now was found alive and well.

  This is simply evidence that some species, once successfully adapted to their ecological niche, can remain remarkably stable genetically over time. This is what one would expect from natural selection. And a successful species is much less likely to go extinct. Evolution is simply the means through which a species becomes optimally adapted to its environment. If coelecanths achieved this millions of years ago and if the deep-sea environment changed little in the meantime, there would be no selective pressure to change to a different body plan.

  OMG scientists have been using fruit flies to study genetics in evolution for over 90 years! ... Do you really think that a genetic scientist has not hoped to find evidence of evolution into another species in all these years of fruit fly research?

  I repeat... the intent of those experiments was not to transform fruit flies into "another species"... please see the link I provided you. There is a big difference between experiments designed to figure out how processes of evolution work (such as mutation) and experiments designed to artificially produce a new species. And 90 years is a very short period of time in evolutionary terms.

  And let me make myself CLEAR. I do NOT nor have I read any WT material for 15 years.

  I wouldn't doubt that this is the case....ideas can stick around for a very long time. What I pointed out was that your reasoning WRT the fruit-fly experiments is the same that you would have learned in the Creation book (see again the link in my previous post which discusses this Watchtower book).
• 

  Apostate Kate

  I seen on Talk Origens that the WT book was listed there and refuted but I have never read it. I have read that fruit flys have been researched for years by evolutionist scientists doing genetic research.

  You may not believe this but I used to believe that evolution between species is how life came about. I never stopped believing in a Creator, just in how He did it.

  I respect your conclusions that we do not agree on. We see mutations (genetic varient) differently. Do you have evidence of a species mutating into another that a non science major can understand? We can check a persons blood to find out if they are the parents to a child with almost 100% acuracy, surely we can find proof that one species has mutated into another.

  On the species interbreeding, if it is the same species even though they are separated by time and land, they will still be the same species. The coyotes that hang out here don't know that they are not supposed to get my German Shepherd pregnant.

  I believe in adaptation and natural selection, but not genetic varience that can lead to an entirly new more complex life form. The code...its the code. What came first the chicken or the egg? The code did. Show me proof where DNA code received additional information out of nowhere. How can it mutate into a higher life form if the information for that higher life form doesn't exist? Where is the proof that ANY life form is evolving into a more complex life form. If this is the method of life, there has to be evidence. I'm not talking about genes being rearranged, turned on or off, etc. But new genetic information leading to a higher more complex life form.