Cofty, do you think the experiments such as the Lenski experiment you mentioned above could ever yield the result of, say, producing a multi-cellular organism out of the bacteria?
The Greatest Show On Earth - A Book Summary In Many Parts
by cofty 81 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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cofty
Hortensia - Thanks for the reminder - I need to get on with this.
LV101 - here are some ideas for your Christmas list..
"Endless Forms Most Beautiful" by Sean B. Carroll
"The making of the fittest" by Sean B Carroll
"Evolution, what the fossils say" by Donald Prothero
"Why Evolution is true" by Jerry Coyne
"Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin
"Life Ascending" by Nick Lane
That last one is astonishing. I am reading it for the second time to get my head round it.
Knownothing - good question. I am not at all sure about that. My best guess is that the chances of multi-cell life evolving in a small scale experiment is vanishingly small. The best I can do for now is recommend this Wiki article but you have inspired me to investigate further. There is a brilliant chapter about the evolution of eukaryotic cells in Nick Lane's book.
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Hortensia
I wonder why that keeps happening to my posts? Sorry for the empty post.
Here's another transitional fossil:
http://news.discovery.com/animals/oldest-dinosaur-found-121204.html
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Knowsnothing
Oi Cofty, would you get on with it? I was really enjoying it!
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Slidin Fast
Marked
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cofty
Will do!
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Slidin Fast
Cofty, magnificent! Thankyou.
I was thinking of an event currently happening before our very eyes. Ash die-back is the species succumbing on a huge scale to the fungus Chalara fraxinea. This is resulting in huge swathes of ash trees withering to nothing.
However, some ash plants have an immunity to this fungus. The result will be that the remaining ash gene pool will have been selected for survival from this fungus. There will have been a huge scale short timespan event leaving a stronger sub-species. Evolution as we watch.
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prologos
Cofty thank you, but this what happened to me. I read all of Dawkins books except one, not available here. with my 9th decade brain nothing really sticks, but my overall impression was that nothing he presented would not have happened if an intelligent, but uncaring creator would be the originator of the evolution mechanism. Even his simulation of evolution requires the existence of a setup that had to be cleverly conceived. so here (still) are my great shows:
appearance of space, energy,matter, (movement in) time,
appearance of life + evolving of species
appearance of the human mind including religious compulsive behaviour
keep us further enlightend even if its hard sell. blessings.
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cofty
Hi Prologos, thanks for your comments..
Evolution has nothing to say about the appearance of space, energy, matter and time.
It doesn't involve the origin of life from non-living chemicals either but there is some very promising progress in that area.
What we know for a fact is that every living thing on earth - including Homo sapiens - evolved from a common ancestor. That much is certain.
Science can't prove that there was no supernatural author of the process but it also has no need of one.
Slidin Fast - Yes that is a good example of natural selection.