Slashdot Mirror
Study Explains Evolution's Molecular Advance
pnewhook writes "The New York Times is reporting that 'by reconstructing ancient genes from long-extinct animals, scientists have for the first time demonstrated the step-by-step progression of how evolution created a new piece of molecular machinery by reusing and modifying existing parts. The researchers say the findings, published today in the journal Science, offer a counterargument to doubters of evolution who question how a progression of small changes could produce the intricate mechanisms found in living cells.'"
It was only a matter of time before scientists discovered the steps and had enough knowledge to connect the dots.
Frankly, I'm glad they're finding more and more of how biology works. I don't want to get into a creationist debate, but it has always astounded me that people would argue that life is too complex for it to have been made "naturally" and that a higher being must have helped along the way. But, by saying that, they're saying that God is not powerful enough to create such a universe in which evolution can happen, that a universe created by God could not possibly work by itself.
How dare they...
There is nothing without God.
This is a science discussion - proselytizing has no place here.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
They aren't saying that God is not powerful enough to create a universe with evolution. They are saying God didn't create a universe with evolution. Significant difference there
It's truly an intellectually dishonest practice and it speaks directly to the kind of Doctor Behe is. This is the guy who testified in that 'lets put ID into the classroom' trial in Dover, PA. His testimony was an embarrassement and I'm surprised he has enough credibility left that the NY Times would include him in their article. I guess it's the whole "two sides of an argument" theme again.
Here's a great astronomy example of almost the exact same thing.
http://www.anomalist.com/commentaries/claim.html
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Anyway, it was pretty easy demonstrating what a moron you are. You have demonstrated an inability to think beyond what most 5 or 6 year olds can achieve.
I'd dismiss you as a troll but as I've seen so much evidence that many people do 'think' like you I'm taking you seriously.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
Speaking of sheltered lives...
I'm a high school dropout and I'm both an athiest and I subscribe to evolution. I know a lot of college graduates who are very sharp and intelligent and yet don't accept evolution and believe in god.
Really, I think that the choice on this matter is often dicated by emotion, which overrides any intellectual consideration or presentation of facts. Some people are afraid of there not being a god, or don't like the feeling of not knowing the purpose of life, or just like sharing beliefs with their friends and families, or don't like to admit they've been wrong for the past forty years, etc.
And these people are important: they make up more than half of the voting population in my estimation so they have a profound effect on you and I. So don't dismiss them. And don't bother trying to convert them. But find a way to live with them. You may even find some of them make good friends.
Cheers.
The reason the NYT is giving this the "doubters of evolution" spin is that there's this guy, Michael Behe, who wrote a book around 1995 somewhere called "Darwin's Black Box". The central idea of that book was the allegation that evolutionary science treats the cell like a "black box" that nobody attempts to look inside or explain. Evolutionary science, said Behe, only concerns itself with larger structures, and only assumes the stuff inside the cell "just works". Because evolution can't explain, subcellular structures, evolution lacks a foundation, is built on nothing, and is wrong.
This is, of course, silly if you're actually familiar with the science, because to whatever extent scienists ever treated the cell like a "black box", it was because we didn't know how to look inside yet. Viewing machinery the size of a molecule is really hard. Scientists could analyze things, but have only relatively recently gained the ability to view the full picture of things, much as they might have wanted to.
Once the technology for understanding the molecular structures that make up cells really started to take off (say, at the beginning of the 80s-ish), a revolution of sorts started in microbiology and genetics. And as this happened, Behe managed to exploit a neat trick of timing; he wrote his book just as a lot of fascinating questions were appearing through this revolution in microbiology, but before (since the questions had only just been asked) we really knew what the answers were. Behe was able to craft the illusion, since we didn't know the answers to some of those questions yet, that the questions didn't have answers or would never be answered and thus evolution was flawed-- not mentioning that work was underway or even partially completed to find answers to all of these questions. In the time since Behe wrote his book, cell microbiology has progressed by leaps and bounds, but the book itself is able to do a neat little job of making it seem like the cell really is just an inexplicable black box, because he wrote it just as science totally finished picking the lock.
Which brings us to this story: The one scientific "big idea" in Darwin's Black Box was what Behe calls "Irreducible Complexity", and the publication of Darwin's Black Box was the main way this idea was popularized. The idea behind irreducible complexity is that there exist structures that contain one or more parts, and that if you remove one of the parts, the entire thing stops working. But one would expect that evolutionary mutation can only change "one thing" at a time; the idea that a single new allele that could simultaneously create two separable and interlocking structures seems wholly unbelievable. So how did irreducibly complex structures evolve?
This is an extremely reasonable question, and one evolutionary science is obligated to answer. The problem is that Behe, and the rest of the ID crowd:
The answer to how irreducibly complex structures could evolve is pretty simple: all that would have to happen is for a structure to change its purpose over time. That is to say, it doesn't matter that irreducibly complex structures can only evolve one part at a time, because it is simple to imagine each of the small structures in an irreducibly complex system independently evolving for some other purpose than the big IC system performs, then being adapted into a bigger IC system with rube goldberg style ingenuity, then gradually losing the ability to function for their original purpose indepen
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"Dismissing the existence of God in no way advances the human condition."
You mean other than removing the need for some to kill the non-believers and heretics in "his" name?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Using genetic algorithms, if I randomly write bytes at 10M/sec to a hard disk long enough, I will eventually produce Windows Vista
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Genetic Algorithms are *NOT* about a million monkeys typing random garbage until you stumble upon the complete works of Shakespeare. You reveal a complete ignorance of what Genetic Algorithms are and how they work when you suggest such a thing.
I am a programmer and I have personally used Gentic Algorithms in the past. I have personally witnessed just how FAST they spontaneously generate information. How FAST they generate complex structured information. Sometimes they demonstrate slow steady improvements, and sometimes they generate huge leaps and bounds in solving problems.
The process by which evolution creates information is well understood, and has been the subject of many mathematical papers. The FACT that the evolution process can be harnessed to create information and solve problems has been extensively observed, documented, and USED in real industrial applications. In fact the Genetic Algorithms evolution process has been used to create new better more efficient jet engine designs, designs better and more efficent than any human expert has ever been able to design.
Genetic Algorithms are a powerful tool in the programmer's bag of tricks, and I highly reccommend that any and all programmers learn and explore them. Any programmer can easily witness ad understand for himself exactly how evolution is an information processessing system, and an information creation system. Can witess for themselves exactly how evolution can and does create information. Just pick up any book on Genetic Algorithms, or use Google to find any of the excellent websites on the subject.
And anyone who claims that evolution does not or cannot create information, well they are flat out Wrong and Ignorant. It's as silly as someone claiming that man can never build a heavier-than-air fling machine AFTER scientsists have understood and built and witnessed such machines working.
I've built it. I've witnessed it. And anyone who doubts it is absolutely invited to study Genetic Algorithms and understand it themselves and built it themselves and witness it themselves.
People who say evolution cannot create complex information and cannot produce the complexity of life we see today, those people warrant as much respect as someone claiming flying machines are impossible.
A sun-centered solar system explains the mechanism that divides the light from the darkness. It is absurd for anyone to suggest that a sun centered solar system in any way says or means that God does not exist. Nuclear fusion explains the mechanism that creates light for the earth. It is absurd for anyone to suggest that nuclear fusion in any way says or means that God does not exist. Optics explains the mechanism that creates rainbows. It is absurd for anyone to suggest that optics in any way says or means that God does not exist. And evolution explains the mechanism that creates the diversity of life on earth. It is absurd for anyone to suggest that evolution in any way says or means that God does not exist.
Anyone who suggests that evolution and God are in any sort of conflict is as bad as the crackpot fundamentalist idiots who had Galileo imprisoned for life when he said that the earth moves around the sun. The fact that so many people are replaying this exact same nonsense today is an absolute embarrassment.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.