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Ready, Steady, Evolve
Stront writes "New Scientist is reporting that plants and animals can 'bottle up' evolution until they need it. A certain protein 'hides away' mutated genes acting like a genetic valet, however in extreme environments, such as high temperature or noxious chemicals, the cleaning process breaks down and the mutations are released all at once. This goes some way to explaining examples that are considered to defy standard evolutionary theory, such as the Bombardier Beetle."
Doesn't this kind of go against the theory of natural selection? I mean, if the mutated gene is hidden, then there really isn't a difference between the inferior and superior versions, so the gene pool won't be improved.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
According to evolutionary "thinking" there must have been thousands of generations of beetles improperly mixing these hazardous chemicals in fatal evolutionary experiments, blowing themselves to pieces. Eventually. we are assured, they arrived at the magic formula, but what about the development of the inhibitor?
Never trust any arguement that has to resort to putting thinking in quotes! Especially if the word 'god' is on the same page!
You can't "defy" a theory. That's why it's called a theory. Theorys "evolve" (heh) until they finally fit all the available facts, and then we can be fairly sure that that is what is really happening.
It's a bit difficult to comment on a story, when the story requires subscription to the print edition of a magazine to view it! That, or wait a week until the story is released to the masses.
A simple proof of evolution is to look at genetic programming (for example here, here and here).
Just look at the classic example of ants collection food. It is beautifully described in John R. Koza's great books (1, 2 and 3) on the subject.
Just imagine adding a fermone layer to freeciv and let the random search for a superior player begin.
Only if you're a creationist.
debunkingOf course, the mutations are also released when your Pokemon hits a certain level (depending on the Pokemon), or is exposed one of several rare stones, or even becomes extremely attached to its trainer.
Shredder has many vials of a substance called "Mutagen" that can also release these mutations.
If you want to be seen, stand up. If you want to be heard, speak up. If you want to be respected, sit down and shut up.
> This mechanism is so subtle, it is surely proof of an intelligent designer
OTOH, we are so dumb, this is surely a proof that there is no designer.
Furthermore, people are so dumb, that the universe must be a bad dream I'm having, and other people are just an imagination or representations of myself.
I must stop talking to myself.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
There's no great mystery; all of the chemicals are common, other beetles exist that excrete them separately; and the temperatures and pressures are not really that great (only just above boiling). So what?
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Ignoring all the people who want to get into a creationist vs. evolution debate, I find this very interesting. (For the record, I'm a Christian who is interested in science.)
I've always been curious about evolution, but have found a problem in it that I havn't been able to get around.
We can see natural selection at work withen a species before our eyes in a matter of generations, but have yet to see any dramatic jump that evolutionary theory supports.
Could this be the answer? Could these stored up Genes have enough in side of them to not only modify a breed of species, but create an entirly new one? I'd love to see more research on this.
If so, we have discovered the final missing link in evolutionary theory.
The Internet is generally stupid
"Ironically it contradicts itself the evolutionary theory by such plants and animals with "hidden genes" are more prone to get gene-defect diseases like cancer etc. So that's basically a huge evolutionary drawback which should have eliminated by evolution."
No, because there is nothing evolutionarily "bad" about cancer, so long as you don't get it until you've had offspring.
"But we have record in all older human of a superior alien power interfering which life on this planet."
So aliens came and jiggered with life on earth - cool. One then simply wonders... how did this superior alien lifeform come about? Infinite regress...
"You guy defending the evolution theory so keenly are in fact a new kind of religious zealot - you just replaced the trinity with natural sciences.
I wonder when the first fires will burn and the whitchhunts start."
Total sensationalist bullshit. There are many, many excellent popular books on the subject. Why not educate yourself? Or wait for the aliens to take you away...
I'm not entirely convinced that the Bombadier Beetle is a good argument against evolution, even before this theory.
There are many organisms that use what would be lethal chemicals to disorient, disable and/or kill their prey and/or predators. If you think of the squillions of beetles in the world (and there really are billions and billions of them), then look at the amount of time they've existed (a very very long time), is it really that surprising that such a feature could evolve?
Something as advantageous as being able to secrete chemicals that predators don't like gives you such a massive advantage over your defenseless peers that natural selection is going to promote that feature very aggressively, then one beetle arrives that has slightly too powerful secretion methods that squirt the chemical rather than simple secreting it onto their exoskeleton. Now you have an even bigger advantage, you can deter your predator before it has you in it's mouth. Again, natural selection is going to promote that quite aggressively because you're less likely to be injured and unable to reproduce further.
I admit that the leap from there to squirting two different chemicals so they meet at a precise point and react is a little greater, but it only has to happen by random chance once, after that natural selection (less other random chances of death) will take care of making it the predominant feature.
Given the incredible amount of specialisation nature displays elsewhere, the bombadier beetle doesn't seem to be too out of the ordinary. I would suggest that something like bioluminesence is equally impressive/unlikely.
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
You're confusing two different meanings of the word theory. One meaning is of hypothesis or conjecture, as in a suggested explanation yet to be proven right or wrong.
Another meaning is of governing principles as in "theory of operation". I have a book at home call "Loudspeakers: Theory and Design". The author does not offer hypotheses about how speakers work; he has no doubt as to whether they work and how they work. He's not writing conjecture - he's writing science and engineering - the general body of rules governing the operation of loudspeakers, which the author collectively refers to as their "theory of operation". This second sense of the word can be defied.
In the days of Darwin, the word "theory" in "Theory of Evolution" probably may have refered to the first sense of the word, as a hypothetical explanation of the origin of all species, including ours. But talk to a biologist or naturalist today and he'll tell you they have no doubt but that evolution is a fact; how it works, its principles of operation, is something they're still exploring and trying to explain.
This confusion between the meanings is something the Bible-thumbers love to exploit (I'm not lumping you in with them, though). They jump up and down and shout about how evolution is just a "theory" and that their half-baked Creation Science theories deserve equal consideration in the schools. Don't buy it. Evolution is a fact. We're sure of the big picture; it's just some of the details that we haven't worked out yet.
--Jim
"This goes some way to explaining examples that are considered to defy standard evolutionary theory, such as the Bombardier Beetle."
OK, I'll bite. Time to feed the Trolls...
The bombardier beetle never defied standard evolutionary theory. It may have defied belief, but that's a different matter entirely. If anything, the bombardier beetle, and countless other amazing species, show the awesome power of something as simple as random mutation and selection.
I am a Karma Library.
however in extreme environments, such as day before the deadline, the manager process breaks down and all the kludges are released all at once.
Yeah. Creationists are always quick to point out
what they percive as "intelligent design".
On the other hand, they completely ignore that nature is far more abundant with "unintelligent design" - especially at the molecular level.
Intelligent design would be to use the same enzyme in all animals. Today, you have the same enzymes, but they have differences, not in function, but in all kinds of non-important ways.
Strangely (for the creationist), these differences are larger between, say a human and a bacteria than between two different types of bacteria.
Oh, and that beetle example is bulls**t. Read some non-biased information somewhere
instead of that pseudoscientific creationist crap.
(someone linked to a faq at talk.origins, probably a good place to start.)
This is the problem with trying to argue these points when science and religion collide. Both sides believe that they are correct based on their own dogma. The religious side is correct because the bible is correct - end of argument. The science side is correct because this is the prevailing paradigm.
There is one interesting piece in the article:
We should remember God's admonition to Job, 'Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?' (Job 38:4).
It is interesting to note that this argument cuts against both sides!
And it's been a theory for a good twenty years at least in evolutionary biology. It explains why we find a lot of fossils of different species, but very few fossils that qualify as a "missing link" between species. This just gives a reasonable explanation for the mechanism which produces punctuated equilibrium.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
I realise that this is going to get modded down, but it frustrates me that so many people who pull this "I'm a Christian therefore I believe in God not evolution" crap are actually simple drones of the right. Think for yourself, will ya?
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
Most of us have thought for ourselves; hopefully by reading some material from both sides of this argument and deciding based on the evidence presented whether they too believe in the theory of evolution or not.
The thing that draws most scientifically minded people to evolution is the scientific observations presented to back it up, and the difficulty in refuting it for the most part. Christianity on the other hand, while having the difficult to refute part down REALLY solidly, has only a series of assumptions based on "faith" for its defense. No offense to anyone's religion, but religion not only is not equal to science, but it doesn't even WANT to be like science. You're not SUPPOSED to test your God. You're just supposed to believe. Nothing wrong with that, but when you start putting up faith in the face of scientific data, it's a bit silly.
Your philosophical argument about thought is very interesting, but I don't need faith in my own intelligence either. I believe what I see with my own eyes; i.e. thinking for myself.
If your existence came into being based on totally random events, then your brain also was the result of a random event.
One line of thinking is to believe that God set it all up: the Big Bang, evolution, killer asteroids all to get to this point. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, there's no reason to believe God couldn't have figured out exactly the starting conditions to create humans. And in so doing, God not only demonstrates that ability, but also gives us li'l children of his a world with all sorts of clues about how it works and how it came to be how it is. And now our task, should we choose to accept it, is to create a universe where we have defeated the Four Horsemen and our own flaws because it's the Right Thing To Do.
To me, God starting with the Big Bang and getting to here is a lot more impressive than doing a little sculpting in 4004 B.C.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Let me preface this by saying that I do believe in God (after thinking everything through and deciding for myself)
:) ). This was all because I felt a bond to my common man, not because I feared reprisal in the afterlife. How were my morals any less real than the morals of those who 'do right' because their God tells them to? Belief in God in no way equates or even implies morality or ethics. Look at the Sept. 11th hijackers. They most likely believed very strongly in God. You could argue that they didn't follow God's teachings, but the point is that they believed they were.
Just because evolution was taught as truth in high school and college, and it allows you to live your life any way that you want without concern for life after death or accountability to a higher power doesn't mean that you should buy it.
It upsets me that so many people who believe in God imply that simply because someone does not believe in God they cannot have any true morals or ethics. I did not believe in God through most of high school and college, yet (I believe) I was a very moral person. I did not drink, did not do drugs, worked hard, tried not to lie (though I was somewhat less successful in that regard
I realize that this is going to get modded down, but it frustrates me that so many people who pull this "I'm an intellectual therefore I believe in evolution not God" crap are actually simple drones of the left. Think for yourself, will ya?
(Note, I have moderator access, but I think responding is much better to this than modding down)
I am sure there are just as many drones on the right who simply believe in God because it is easier. Most Christians (the majority of religious people in America) have not read the Torah, Koran or Bhagavad Gita. Why is this? Is it because they know after reading the Bible that nothing else can possibly be correct? They may say that to themselves, but I doubt it is the truth. I find it much more likely that the Bible is what they were brought up with, and it is simply easier to follow what they already know as opposed to working to figure out what they can truly put their faith in.
I find it perplexing that many people take the time to diligently study the religion they were brought up to know, yet few take even scant moments to study the countless other religions in this world. Well, no, it doesn't really perplex me. It saddens me.
--David
Everyone, please read this article at Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense . It states 15 common statements/questions that creationists pose to try and discount evolution, and answers them all quite nicely.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
A step-by-step evolution of the bombardier system is really not that hard to envision. The scenario below shows a possible step-by-step evolution of the bombardier beetle mechanism from a primitive arthropod.
1.Quinones are produced by epidermal cells for tanning the cuticle. This exists commonly in arthropods. [Dettner, 1987]
2.Some of the quinones don't get used up, but sit on the epidermis, making the arthropod distasteful. (Quinones are used as defensive secretions in a variety of modern arthropods, from beetles to millipedes. [Eisner, 1970])
3.Small invaginations develop in the epidermis between sclerites (plates of cuticle). By wiggling, the insect can squeeze more quinones onto its surface when they're needed.
4.The invaginations deepen. Muscles are moved around slightly, allowing them to help expel the quinones from some of them. (Many ants have glands similar to this near the end of their abdomen. [Holldobler & Wilson, 1990, pp. 233-237])
5.Some invaginations (now reservoirs) become so deep that the others are inconsequential by comparison. Those gradually revert to the original epidermis.
6.In various insects, different defensive chemicals besides quinones appear. (See Eisner, 1970, for a review.) This helps those insects defend against predators which have evolved resistance to quinones. One of the new defensive chemicals is hydroquinone.
7.Cells that secrete the hydroquinones develop in multiple layers over part of the reservoir, allowing more hydroquinones to be produced. Channels between cells allow hydroquinones from all layers to reach the reservoir.
8.The channels become a duct, specialized for transporting the chemicals. The secretory cells withdraw from the reservoir surface, ultimately becoming a separate organ. This stage -- secretory glands connected by ducts to reservoirs -- exists in many beetles. The particular configuration of glands and reservoirs that bombardier beetles have is common to the other beetles in their suborder. [Forsyth, 1970]
9.Muscles adapt which close off the reservoir, thus preventing the chemicals from leaking out when they're not needed.
10.Hydrogen peroxide, which is a common by-product of cellular metabolism, becomes mixed with the hydroquinones. The two react slowly, so a mixture of quinones and hydroquinones gets used for defense.
11.Cells secreting a small amount of catalases and peroxidases appear along the output passage of the reservoir, outside the valve which closes it off from the outside. These ensure that more quinones appear in the defensive secretions. Catalases exist in almost all cells, and peroxidases are also common in plants, animals, and bacteria, so those chemicals needn't be developed from scratch but merely concentrated in one location.
12.More catalases and peroxidases are produced, so the discharge is warmer and is expelled faster by the oxygen generated by the reaction.
13.The walls of that part of the output passage become firmer, allowing them to better withstand the heat and pressure generated by the reaction.
14.Still more catalases and peroxidases are produced, and the walls toughen and shape into a reaction chamber. Gradually they become the mechanism of today's bombardier beetles.
15.The tip of the beetle's abdomen becomes somewhat elongated and more flexible, allowing the beetle to aim its discharge in various directions.
My question isn't creationism vs evolution but why creationists can only see God working like some Las Vegas magician causing things to pop out of thin air. Why can't they believe that evolution is God's mechanism for creation? Creation didn't stop 7000 yrs or so ago (when bible literalists believe the world was made) but is an ongoing process.
Hundreds of years ago these same people would've been saying that "There's no proof that planets orbit the sun" or that "The surface of the earth isn't slowly moving". As more scientific knowledge comes in they are forced to drop dearly held beliefs and move on to new ones. Eternal "truths" don't work very well when they are based on the current temporal world. Instead of tying their faiths to the physical world they should focus on the philosophical and spiritual worlds where they should've been all along.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
The catolic church did murder in the medieval times and it was all right. The United States goverment do murder people (death penalty) and it is all right. what is moral and what is not is just a matter of culture and culture changes. The highjackers of 9/11 murdered thousands of people, and I have no doubt that they think that this move were rigth thing to do. Shure in my opinion all those are incredliby wrong and moraly inaceptable, and I am an atheist. I do not fear that a god will punish me if I kill a person, but I do believe it is wrong.
Just because I don't believe there is a "god" watching over me this does not mean that all those things my parents, my family, my teachers and my friends have tought me are sudenly invalid. Religions do impose a moral, but it is not the only way. If this were so people who are jews or budist should have a diferent law then cristians or muslins? After all the laws reflect, or at least should reflect the morals of a culture.
And you ask what is the utility of morals beside avoid being punished? Why do you think the world is not a chaotic place? If there were no morals, people would kill each other because they steped on your feet. Every society have a moral, and it is dinamic, the hole point is that it changes slowly, in terms of generations. Your morals are diferent from those of you father and even more then of your grandfather. why do you think it was all right to have slaves before and now it is a crime? If morals weren't dinamic, we would still be slavaring people and buring witches in public places (maybe live in CNN).
People are moral not to avoid punishment, but because they do believe that folowing those rules they are doing the right thing. And if the olnly reason a person don't kill others is because you believe there is a "supreme being" that will punish you if he did, I do hope never to meet with that person, because when he or she overcome the fear of this "punishment", then he or she would most likely become a serial killer.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
I'm doing the traditional /. thing and not actually reading the article, but I assume it's the old news on heat-shock and chaperone proteins being shown to be a general case.
This isn't "saving up" mutations. This is a system for supressing aberrant mutations breaking down in stressful environments. The True Believers out there would like to phrase this to illustrate the cleverness of natural selection, but this is the failure of a beneficial system leading to a honking buttload of mutants appearing. Nothing more. Yes, throwing a bunch of random solutions at the problem may find an answer and allow a population to continue living in a stressful environment, but it's a bit assuming to try to say the system has evolved to break down in this manner (though it is a rather elegant failure mode).
As for the bombardier beetle...
Hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, when mixed, turn brown over the course of a couple minutes and won't taste very good. Various beetles besides the Bombardier Beetle use the chemicals, uncatalyzed, merely for the foul taste. Evolution can work in as many steps as it likes increasing the foulness of the taste without any delightful imagery of exploding beetles occurring to anyone.
Of course the page linked to is slow to abandon such delightful imagery so, while it is kind enough to mention that nothing very exciting happens unless you add a catalyst, it likes to give the impression that without that catalyst (or "anti-inhibitor", if you please) the beetles would die a horrible death in the manner of a piece of popcorn, though not quite as tasty.
Let me let you in on another "secret". There can be huge ranges of activity in classes of closely related proteins. This is especially true of the enzymes responsible for catalyzing naturally occuring reactions between simple chemicals. This is a bit of a problem for the Creationist because their idea of the beetles stumbling across a highly efficient enzyme and blowing themselves to bits for generations is very useful. Having them stumble across a weak version that merely made them taste a little worse than their competitors when an attacker mixed the chemicals together is hardly an exciting idea. Nor is it exciting for this weak enzyme to follow the same path of increasing the foulness of the taste that the parahydroxybenzene glands went through.
Of course, once this enzyme reaches a certain level it does get to be dangerous to the beetles. Chance encounters with learning predators that may have only have caused injury become fatal due to the beetles' own defense mechanism (though, because the added foulness of taste deters predation, this is still beneficial to the species, though not to the individual). Any solution is beneficial, as the alternative is death. The apparent winner is to excrete the chemicals, which isn't surprising as some of the other Brachinus species do this without the fun of superheating. Coevolution of improvements to the catalyst and to the ejection system gives us what we have today.
Unfortunately, answering one set of Creationists' call to provide an explanation is met with catcalls of "just-so-story!" from another set. It's really best to ignore them as a group... which, hey, is what I'll be doing.
Simple Machines in Higher Dimensions
Every so often, a biological/evolutionary/ecological topic comes up on Slashdot. Now, folks here are mostly engineers of one sort or another, not biologists, and it shows.
:-) As someone who has way more than dabbled in both fields, I can say that a hard engineering mindset does not lend itself to understanding the biological sciences in general, and ecology/evolution in particular.
I have an MS in ecology and population genetics, but have also made my living in the CS field for years (to pay the mortgage, you understand
Evolution (and I've taught college courses on the subject) is not engineering. To understand it, you need to understand ecology, genetics, biochemistry, lots of general biology, etc., etc. There are few topics with more misunderstandings, by people who think they understand it all, and don't. Including some people in the field, har har.
Finally, regarding the Creationists and the "irreducible complexity" thing. As the Theory of Evolution got traction in the intellectual world, the Creationists always pointed out something we didn't understand as proof of a Creator. As more and more became understood, they retreated to the next thing. This was called the "God of the gaps" approach - if we don't understand NOW what's going on, it must be GOD!
That's how I feel about "irreducible complexity". It will be found to be reducible. Well, maybe, mabye not. Where is it written that talking monkeys should necessarily come to understand the Cosmos in all its glory? That's what we are, boys and girls. For all our wonderful accumulated knowledge, there's an infinite ocean of subtlety out there... there's no guarantee that it's all accessible to our brand of cognition or any other computation either.
We return you now to your regularly scheduled trollfest...
Religion is only part of the equation for a "good person." In many religions, zealotism breeds people who are immutable to outside suggest, and often hostile towards those who do not share their beliefs. In other cases, indeed in many cases, they simply view themselves are "better people".
This is not to say that relgion does no enhance life. I see many religious people who do good things for the world/community based on their beliefs.
I've also seen many non-religious people who also do a lot of good, not out of any believe in heaven or an afterlife, but simply because they believe in doing good. The contrast to this is ina a few people I know, we can take a few friends of mine.
Friend 1: Found little point in life, was quite constantly depressed. Verged on very drastic negetive consequence. She became "Christian" (though many other religions are good as well, I won't say Christian is the best) and was embraced by her church, found love and certain amount of peace in herself. She seems a lot happier lately
Friend 2: Was raised as an athiest, by athiests. She has not only no religion, but also background reason for life, or a strong basis for doing anything. She seems wholly unsatisfied at most times, and care little for many of her actions. This isn't to say that she's done strong harm to anyone else, but she lacks a fundamental goal in life, doesn't believe in having children (world sucks too much to raise them in), and often enough has a "what's the point attitude."
Friend 3: Has no real religion. Was raised by a supportive and loving family. Believes she has a future, and wants to propogate children. She often helps others, and is a caring, giving individual.
I've met a lot of other people who are quote religios" but do wholly bad things. They tend to have a good regard for their church circle but little for those outside.
My point. Relgion doesn't always define a meaning in life, but it often helps. The fundamental teachings and upbringing behind it are what is essential. If a church is teaching you how to be a good person, and not teaching you intolerance of others, then the church is doing a good job. If your parents raise you with the same values, then your parents are doing a similarly good job.
Often, it's the basic teachings (play nice, be a good boy Vs care for others, be a good Christian/other) that are important.
I have no name for my believes. I disagree with a large part taught by my family's religion, but agree with many of the basic tenets of goodness towards others. I also believe in evolution, but also in a higher power, and yet don't find a conflict. I'm definately not a bible banger, but I'm happy in my own purpose in life, which is what I think really counts.
Contradictions and agreements are welcome, but remember to think before you post - phorm
God and the very concept of absolute, objective truth are inseparable. If objective truth exists, it can only exist because it is embodied in the nature of God.
Science doesn't claim "objective truth", at least not in the philosophical sense you mean it. Scientific truths are never claimed to be anything more than theory informed by repeatability. I'm comfortable basing my worldview on that. In fact, I'm not only comfortable, I feel that it's the only secure ground to stand on.
I can't follow the rest of your argument because it's a non sequiter. You go from objective physical truth (which science doesn't claim, but does investigate) to objective moral and ethical truth (which science doesn't claim or investigate).
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Call me a heretic but...
Who is to say that God didn't create the mechanism of evolution? It goes along with my belief that God wouldn't create a creature that couldn't adapt.
Also, the idea that form follows function fits nicely into the idea of niche.
A definition of niche from AP Dictionary:
the unique position occupied by a particular species, conceived both in terms of the actual physical area that it inhabits and the function that it performs within the community.
It is plain to see that life adapts. To suggest otherwise would be to deny the very truth. The finches on Galapagos are one of the first and most pristine examples of both adaptation and niches.
Furthermore, I believe that many, including myself, study science because it is the search for truth and meaning in the physical world. As such, you could consider it a religion of sorts. As for me, such a scientific search for the truth is merely a parallel path to the search for God, like orthodox christianity, because truth is what God is all about.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.