Still More Evidence for Evolution

Uche writes: "Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have uncovered the first genetic evidence that explains how large-scale alterations to body plans were accomplished during the early evolution of animals."

Comments

Sounds like a Makefile gene to me

[JamieF]

./configure --with-booklungs --with-antennae --no-fishybits \
--legs=6 --enable-experimental-wing-thingies
make critter
./critter -buz

Creation vs. Evolution debate at my university

[chfleming]

Just happened like a week or two ago.

The creationists mostly lied the whole time.

1) They misaplied the 2nd law of thermodynamics very poorly by treating a race of species as a closed system. A few chemist and myself (a physics major) were very upset at these outright lies.

2) They denied the existence of any transitional fossils, and basically said that scientists were arranging bones and fossils how they wanted to see them.

3) They made false accusations against radioactive dating that haven't applied sense the birth of the field.

4) And finally they had to make up for logical loop holes by stating that early man was far superior to present man, and that in the begining all species existed at once, including the dinosaurs.

5) In all of the debate, they only had one true argument, and it was a bad argument at that. Guess what that argument was? "Positive" mutations haven't been reproduced or observed in the laboratory, therefore they do not exist, therefore evolution is false. And this article is about just that.

Before the debate, I thought it would be interesting to see why someone would believe in creation. Afterwards I was a bit depressed. I had no idea how far a person would go to decieve themself and perpetuate a lie. I felf very sorry for the young teenagers that came with their church group. They were being raised by liars.

One of the debaters agrugment was based on the very results that this article brings up. I know if he saw this now, it would not change his opinion one bit. He has no reason, he creates what ever psuedo reason needed to calm the conflict between his arogant soul and his mind. I bet he doesn't even know that his words are lies.

Any way, I thought I would share this with you people. I don't know what can be learned from this, but anyway, good luck in this sad and ignorant world maya.

Re:Creation vs. Evolution debate at my university

[osgeek]

I don't disagree with the basics of your statements. The Creationist's argument is mostly emotional, so he uses the tactics of throwing out numerous nice-sounding but false claims, in the hope of staying ahead of a rigorous analysis of those claims.

However, it's ironic that you still have this in your sig:

The court ruled it legal to fuck the voters by running out the clock, and demonstrated how to do it.

A rigorous analysis has shown that in some ways of counting votes, Bush won. In some ways of counting votes, Gore won. From a more neutral perspective, the Florida Supreme Sourt screwed up by not taking control of the process when they had the opportunity to create the perception of an honest vote count. Instead, they allowed numerous abuses by the counting methods of Democrat operatives to go unchallenged. So, the US Supreme Court kept them from allowing a legally conducted election to be overthrown by questionable vote-counting methods.

In the end, it was just a power struggle between two political parties, and had nothing to do with the voters getting "fucked".

Viewing it in some slanted light isn't about facts, it's about religion.

Being Scientific often means forgetting the fact that you have a horse in the race for a bit, and instead evaluating the evidence from a neutral perspective. It's the reason why Science has brought us so far in the past few hundred years, whereas Religion accomplished nothing of the sort in the hundred thousand years before the Scientific Method was even postulated.

So what?

[JoeShmoe]

Many years in the future, a bunch of scientists manage to contact God.

"God," they go on to say, "we no longer need you. Anything you can do, we can do. We know now how everything works."

"Is that so?" God responds. "Well, in that case, how about a contest? You create a man, and I'll create a man and we'll see which turns out better."

"Agreed," the scientists repond.

"But," God continues, "you'll have to do it like I did and create a man from the dirt."

"Not a problem," the scientists chortle, knowing enough to be able to resequence basic elements into complex structures like DNA. So, in unison, the scientists get out their beakers, bend down, and scoop up some dirt.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," God says. "You get your own dirt."

My point? Evolution is a non issue. The real debate is in the origin of the framework by which everything evolves. Scientists playing with DNA can make pretty much anything happen. But they still can't create matter with a thought.

- JoeShmoe

.

So what indeed

[krmt]

Unfortunately, while the scientists presuppose the existence of matter in your argument, you presuppose the existence of a God that can create that matter. No one wins this argument, like any other of this sort.

You're Thinking Too Hard :-)

[krmt]

All these so-called "discoveries" are just window dressing. Articles like this one remind me of the magicians using eye-catching attention getters to distract people from the charade they are respresenting as truth.

I think you're missing the point. This sort of thing isn't really taking a stand on the issue you're talking about, although we all tend to jump right to that anyway. Like you said, it can't be proven (or at least, we have absolutely no conception as to how to prove it right now) but what they are finding is the mechanism by which these things happen.

Before you discount the importance of this in the face of "God/No God", think of this: where would we be if Newton hadn't told us that, yes, the universe does have rules. Pasteur told us that, yes, there is something tangible (not just "sin") that causes disease. It might not directly be addressing your fundamental question, but it is an important thing to answer for both sides of the debate, as well as anyone in the middle or way out in left field. If you're looking to understand God or the Universe or something else entirely, discoveries like these help to realign your perceptions about how the world works in very jarring and enlightening ways. You don't have to go around believing you got the plague because you were a bad person, even though you thought you did everything right. You don't have to believe that there was a storm because you were destined to wind up at the bottom of the ocean for that affair you had. You can believe these things if you want to, but you gain the freedom and knowledge to make a more informed decision than our ancestors were able to make.

That, in my opinion, is the ultimate form of progress.

This does not really impact the fundamental question that you're addressing at all, nor does it take away from the beauty of the world around us. Indeed, I think things like this only serve to enrich both, and I find it sad that most people use these sorts of findings just to deconstruct the world for science or God.

Re:Troubling

[armb]

> Doesn't it seem that these scientists are going out of their way to discredit creationists?

Since creationists (I'm not counting just the belief that humans have a divine something as creationism) are going out of their way to discredit science, is that too unreasonable? The difference is that the scientists do it using the results of solid research, and the creationists do it by bullshit and lies. So it isn't really stooping to the same level.

This isn't really "more evidence for evolution" and more than gravity wave detectors are supposed to give us "more evidence for gravity" to refute flat-earthers. This is evidence about more detail of how evolution happens.

I believe creationism SHOULD be taught in schools!

[bani]

... so that we can give our kids the needed tools to spot, analyze, and tear apart ALL intellectual fraud and pseudoscience.

Along those same lines, I would expect to teach:

o) geocentricism, "the moon landings hoax/nasa big lie", "mars face", etc. in astronomy
o) flat earth in geography
o) "free energy", "100mpg carburetor" in physics
o) "breast enlargement pills","penis enlargement pills" in sex ed :-)
o) all the current all-natural/herbal/psychic/magical/religious "cures" in the "health food"/"alternative medicine"/"complimentary medicine" industry.

etc etc etc.

Most of the effort in current teaching methods seems to be emphasis on teaching existing theories, and little to no effort is given on how to dissect and examine "alternative" claims for validity.

Positive Mutations & Antibiotics

[rlp]

In all of the debate, they only had one true argument, and it was a bad argument at that. Guess what that argument was? "Positive" mutations haven't been reproduced or observed in the laboratory, therefore they do not exist, therefore evolution is false. And this article is about just that.

What about antibiotic resistant bacteria? A relatively quick case of evolution in action. Obviously not a positive mutation from our viewpoint - but a positive one from the organism's viewpoint.

Re:Troubling

[Spoing]

...I believe in evolution. I also believe in creation ...

Belief? I don't believe in evolution -- I wouldn't know how to do such a thing. Belief never comes into it.

The preponderance of the evidence leads me to an obvious conclusion -- changes in individual living things occur from generation to generation. Enough time and changes occur, and you have this thing called evolution. In some ancient businesses, it's just called breeding.

If that evidence wasn't there, I'd conclude differently...but not necessarily that a spirit or deity was the necessary other choice.

Re:You do live a sheltered life, don't you?

[Dragoness Eclectic]

I'd find Creationists a bit more convincing if they didn't have to resort to blatant misinformation in their arguments again and again. Half-truths and distortions do nothing more than convince me that some of these Creationists don't even believe their own propaganda, since they can't stick to the facts.

The whole argument is stupid, anyhow. It's based on a mistaken belief that one must cling to a questionable interpretation of the Bible as a matter of faith. Has anyone noticed that only Creationists tie Evolution, Geology, and Atheism together? Those who research Evolution do not insist that one must be an atheist if one believes that evolution rather than recent creation is a better explanation for the development of life on Earth. Those who teach and research modern geology do not insist that one must be an atheist if one believes that geologic processes rather than recent creation is a better explanation for the current geology of Earth.

However, since Creationists fallaciously tie acceptance of modern geology and evolutionary theory to disbelief that God created the Earth, and therefore disbelief in God (i.e., atheism), it has become a matter of faith to oppose evolutionary theory and modern geology as a false, atheistic (and thus, probably diabolic) doctrine by any and all means. If you don't believe me, go read articles and web sites by Creationists that are targetted toward Christians, as opposed to the general public.

To my mind, it is all very pointless because there is no contradiction between evolution and God; who are they to say how God created the universe and life? How can they know that evolution and geological processes are not just more tools in God's toolbox? They can't know, and they who presume to know how God created the universe or to put limits on the methods God used in creation are both small-minded and arrogant beyond belief!

To my mind, the power and grandeur of God is elevated, and not diminished by evolution and geology. To achieve His unknown goals, He started out at least 15 billion years ago with the Big Bang, and designed the entire process of star formation, planet formation, geological processes, evolution, etc! That's a lot bigger than POOF! The Earth was wished into existance a mere 6000-8000 years ago, complete with fake fossils and fake geology.

I wonder if Creationists are afraid of the power and knowledge of the God who created evolution and the Big Bang; I wonder if they want to cut Him down to a size they can comprehend?

Re:You do live a sheltered life, don't you?

[ZaMoose]

Interesting commentary, and I must say that I happen to believe that a "He spoke and it came into existence" does sound a heckuva lot like a "Big Bang".

However, the fact remains that many adherents to the Atheistic Faith (to say that, conclusively, there is no God takes just as much faith as the converse) seek to throw up Big Bang and Evolutionary arguments as proof of the non-existence of God.

I'm also of the opinion that adhering to the tenet that we are descended from Great Apes goes a long way towards reducing people's willingness to believe in the superiority of homo sapiens. I believe that God created us in His image (and the Bible says nothing of intermediary steps in the process) and so, to claim that there was an "open beta test" for hominids is fairly sacreligious, as it calls into question both God's intent and His competency as a Creator.

I'm a big fan of Don Behe's "irreducible complexity" theory (see Darwin's Black Book, ISBN: 0684834936), as it goes a long way towards highlighting the biochemical obstacles to macro-evolution).

Then again, you can always take the Douglass Adams tack: Creation itself is proof of a Divine Creator and since conclusive proof would obviate the need for Faith, Poof! He vanished in a puff of logic.

Man, I'm sorry he's (errrm, Adams, not God) dead. Would have been nice to see the 6th book in his 5-part trilogy completed before his death (instead of the old Tolkien-Unfinished-Works-style book that we'll be getting...)

The Evolution of Creation

[virg_mattes]

> Isn't it funny how that bible states that the earth is round? and this was written in the bible when the earth was still considered to be flat. Isn't that interesting? Think about it... Now, how on earth could that get into the bible? And it wasnt by pure chance, unlike the theory of evolution which depends puerly on chance.

There are a few possible answers to this. If I felt contrary, I could say that the "Earth=round" was inserted into the Bible after the fact. Maybe it was a lucky guess. Perhaps it really was divine inspiration. The point is that it's not compelling evidence that it's divine inspiration. Oh, and evolution doesn't rely solely on chance. That's an extreme oversimplification, usually only used when one is trying to "straw-man" the theory.

> People are so gullable these days. Because some scientist somehere says something, everyone believes it, without question.

No argument here, although I'd extend it to anyone with a real or perceived claim to authority or expertise.

> How can you predict what happend some 12 billion years ago? The weather is bearly accurate to more than one day, and yet evolutionists claim they know what was in the earths atmosphere billions of years ago.

You have a skewed idea of the definition of "predict" if you think one needs to predict the past. The reason the weather long ago is better known than the weather tomorrow is that the long ago has already happened. Scientists can tell what the Earth's climate was like long ago by seeing the evidence of its effects. When meteorologists predict the weather, they're merely taking what they have and extrapolating educated guesses.

> When Charles Darwin came up with the theory of Evolution, not only did the world not believe it, but neither did he. As i see it, the theory of evolution was made up to create a substitute belief to creation.

Whether he believed in it or not is irrelevant to whether it's consistent with the evidence. And, as I see it, it was put forward as a theory to explain biological diversity in the Galapagos Islands.

> People dont want to believe that there is a being somwhere in the heavens that is superior to them, a being that created them and the universe. This being is able to create the universe, and all that is in it, from giant starts, to microscopic life in six days.

Based on the fact that 95% of the world believes in said higher power, I'd say that people do want to believe in a higher power.

> People dont understand how this is possible, and so they create a theory, which allows them to deceive themselves into thinking that they are the superior being. They dont want to have to submit to the one and only true God, they want to do their own thing, which is evil.

Apologies, but this is just nonsense. Firstly, nobody who follows the theory of the origin of the species thinks they they are the controlling factor in that origin, so your claims they they're thinking they are the superior being is incorrect. Second, "the one and only true God" is not science, it's religion, so it can't be applied to the theory of origins in any meaningful way.

> I'm not providing much scientific evidence here for creation, but, any critical person, should be able to see that the theory of evolution is only a THEORY.

You seem to imply that because it's a theory, that it's necessarily wrong. The theory of relativity is also considered a theory, but it has stood up to much experimentation. "Theory" means "not yet proven" but should not be extrapolated to mean incorrect. It's more appropriate to say that theories are incomplete.

> How can we, who dont even understand life, who cant create life in a controlled enviroment, claim that life came about by chance?

There are two points here. First, nobody on Earth can explain why gravitation works. Nobody knows the reason why massive bodies attract one another. To say, however, that this means we can't discuss gravitation in a meaningful way is just silly. We discuss gravity by examining its effects on our universe. We discuss evolution the same way.

Second, I don't personally know anybody who claims that life "came about by chance", and this is the classic straw man argument about evolutionary theory. All this statement demonstrates is that you haven't actually read or studied the theory, because your statement demonstrates gross misunderstanding of the mechanisms of evolution. I won't go into the gory details unless you wish me to do so, but suffice it to say you're badly misinterpreting evolutionary theory, and it ruins your argument.

> With all of our intelligence, we have not been able to create life in a lab, and this is with inteligent input. There was no intelligent input in the theory of evolution. Just chance.

Refer to my statements above about incomplete understanding, and about the "evolution=chance" argument. I will add here that not being able to create life in a lab has no bearing to this discussion, because it assumes that because we haven't done it yet, we never will, and because we don't understand it now, we never can. A mere one hundred years ago, nobody could build a heavier-than-air flying machine, or a computer, or a television, or any of a thousand other things. We learn. It's what we do best.

Virg

Does this make any sense?

[cje]

Maybe God created a World that looks like the result of billions of years of evolution.

Or maybe God created a world that is the result of billions of years of evolution. I'm not particularly religious, but it has always amazed me that so many people apparently believe that a very old Earth/Universe and biological evolution somehow preclude the existence of a higher power. The last time I checked, biology (and the natural sciences in general) was in the business of answering the "how" questions. It makes no attempts to answer the "who" or "why" questions.

Certainly, if a person believes in an all-powerful God, then said person must (by definition) believe that said God would be capable of creating life by employing evolutionary processes. If you were an engineer charged with populating a planet, would you design a species, wipe the drawing board clean, and start from scratch to design another species that is 99% similar to the one you just got done with? I know I wouldn't, and I'm just a lowly code monkey.

I'm an apathetic agnostic, but as far as I can tell, this whole "evolution versus creation" debate is the biggest non-issue in recent history since, by and large, they are the same thing. Oh, I'm aware that there are problems with evolution if you are one of these Biblical literalists who believe that every last word of the Bible is 100% true and that the Universe is 6,000 years old. But I've always been under the impression that these folks constitute a small (but vocal) minority of American evangelicals. Certainly, the Christians that I talk to consider these folks to be a bit of an embarassment.

The "rift" between science and religion (to the extent that there is one) is largely a creation of militant fundamentalists and militant atheists taking pot-shots at each other from opposite sides of a barbed-wire fence. To the rest of us, there is a large middle ground that has more than enough room to hold us comfortably.

Re:Stereotypes on /.? Never....

[gdyas]

Intelligent conversation and discussion can only occur when you throw away all your stereotypes before stepping up to the table. Some
philosopher talked about this once, but basically, you are supposed to try your best to approach the situation without making any
assumption about the person/people with whom are you discussing, how it will benefit you, etc.

I believe quite the opposite. Because of science and its ability to give us solid facts, it's wrong to give all views equal credence at the starting line in a scientific discussion. Of course the idea appeals to us because most of us believe in democracy, equality, etc, and in a purely philosophical question like ideas of right & wrong, aesthetics, etc, you'd be in the right. Science, however, is by no means democratic, by which I mean that any idea MUST match known facts. Discussions on evolution are thus NOT philosophical in nature, because they seek to project facts to formulate an idea about the past. The theory being contested is that animals, including ourselves, developed over time through natural selection. Whether this is true, for a scientist, can only be demonstrated and proven with facts. Creationists OTOH choose to use science when it suits them and discard it when it contravenes their religious beliefs.

This leads me to another argument of yours, that creationists are in the majority. That may be so, but the facts do not rely upon consensus, only on veracity through experimentation. Also, the silly pretense that creationism isn't a religious belief is belied by the fact that it relies on a sort of de novo, deus ex machina placement of life on the planet by a higher power, an inherently religious phenomenon. One could argue in response as Richard Dawkins does, that the idea of the development of man over millenia from more basic organisms is infinitely more awe-inspiring than being plopped here by the almighty about 6000 years ago.

Creationism is to some worthy of ridicule, and understandably so. It's a relic of a time when humans looked up at the sky and thought the stars spoke to them, when we didn't understand why the ground shook or the sun turned dark in mid-day. While I don't agree with bashing people's religious beliefs, when they want to use those beliefs to create public policy, or mandate the passing of those beliefs on in schools, in science classes no less, it's only my duty as a scientist and someone true to simple fact to oppose such stupidity, here and anywhere else I see it.