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Scientists Discover Proteins Controlling Evolution
Khemisty writes "Evolutionary changes are supposed to take place gradually and randomly, under pressure from natural selection. But a team of Princeton scientists investigating a group of proteins that help cells burn energy stumbled across evidence that this is not how evolution works. In fact, their discovery could revolutionize the way we understand evolutionary processes. They have evidence that organisms actually have the ability to control their own evolution."
can the human race auto-evolve itself larger penises?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Life has evolved to be good at evolving? Sounds logical, organisms that increase mutation speed depending on environment should have an advantage.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Intelligent design!!! This proves it! Mice have been behind everything all along!
http://www.object404.com
RTFA and you'll see that the Princeton boys have discovered homeostasis in gene expression. The hyperbolic rhetoric surrounding their discovery would be more justified if they had actually found something that altered the haploid genetic information of gametes in a homeostatic fashion. And they're insulting to Darwin when they say that he thought that evolution was "totally random". That's like the argument some of the more idiotic creationists make when they talk about taking a bunch of watch parts, shaking them up in a bag and assembling a watch.
Seastead this.
This was found in the electron transport chain, which occurs in the mitochondria, which have their own DNA (circular DNA to be precise). The cell is repairing damaged DNA, the cell does this naturally. It is a defense mechanism and does not signal that the cell is actively controlling its evolution. This correction of the damage will NOT be passed on to the next generation of offspring unless it occurs in the egg or sperm cells (and if it is the mitochondria the sperm cells will also have nothing to do with it as all our mitochondria are inherited by our mother's egg cells). This seems to me to be a headline grabber with little to no actual relevance to the research within.
How else do you think we were able to evolve this far in just 6,000 years? It wasn't that long ago that the only humans were a gullible man and a rib-woman!
Trolling is a art,
Then why the hell do I not have a power level over 9,000?
So, the designer is really just a pile of proteins?
PZ Myers had a bit of commentary on this news on his blog, pharyngula.
I'd encourage everyone here to read the post, as well as some of the comments from readers below. The press release is self-contradictory, and extremely vague in terms of details. I'm not expecting too much, but like PZ, I'll give the actual paper a read whenever I can find it.
Who knows, maybe they've found something truly revolutionary... but you can't tell from the press clipping. Ask yourself how often you've seen something science related in the paper, then found out that it bears very little resemblence to reality when you go to read the actual scientist's research papers on the subject? :P
Anyone ever read the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch? Im sure there's plenty of you... I guess my question is, when are the ruling elite going to start their E-Therapy?
If the feedback doesn't alter the DNA itself, then there's no "smart evolution." It's just an evolutionary consequence to a gazillion random mutations. As an "improved natural selector" it seems less so, as the consequence of this is that organisms are more able to adapt to changing conditions. If the conditions change rapidly enough, maybe the feedback effect allows the organism to live, but not thrive, allowing for further random mutations to allow it to outperform its peers in the new environment.
This doesn't go against evolution at all. It simply means that a system has evolved that checks for errors in a very conserved process (the electron transport chain) because if it wasn't conserved then the species would be less fit (less offspring) and die out. It's important to note that evolution is a change in allele frequencies of a population. So this electron transport problem control system is not actively changing allele frequencies. It is simply accounting for problems that arise and letting the organism be fit when it might otherwise not because of some sort of deleterious mutation.
In other words, organisms are evolving ways to evolve better.
This is interesting because matches what I have seen my own brain doing. When I was young, I only learned by watching, listening, and feeling. Then I learned to talk, and could learn by having people explain things to me. Then I learned to read, and I could learn by going to the library, something that was unavailable before.
These are crude examples, but even now my brain continues to grow and, essentially, learn new ways to learn. Evolution and learning are recursive functions.
Qxe4
From TFA:
No, it was never "completely random".
The changes MUST result in a viable individual.
Stillbirths and miscarriages do NOT contribute mutations to the gene pool.
Please tell me that he was quoted incorrectly.
This research sounds like something that could lead to reducing the risks of pregnancy for the 30-40 crowd.
What if mitochondria were found to be the source of most genetic birth defects?
Yes, I believe it's in the "JC3" gene pair.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Wow. Now Slashdot is waiting for Gawker to break science news to the blog crowd?
http://io9.com/5083673/princeton-scientists-discover-proteins-that-control-evolution
Mod up this instead. Much more interesting.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Scientists Discover Proteins Controlling Evolution
Yeah, it's called "Jesus Christ"
You know a scientist named Hey-zeus Christ?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
When I was in school they taught us there were two theories of evolution: Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest, and some nutcase's theory that creatures adapt to their environment and pass those changes down to their children. For example, giraffes stretched their necks to reach food and because they stretched their necks that characteristic was passed down to their children. Sure, the school was just trying to discredit Darwin, but now you're telling me that nutcase's theory has merit?
Duh, what else are fire stones for?
This should not be so surprising.
Organisms that can adapt faster are going to be more successful. Therefore, most organisms will have mechanisms that allow them to adapt quickly.
and not just on TV.
Yif we can!
When I was in school they taught us there were two theories of evolution: Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest, and some nutcase's theory that creatures adapt to their environment and pass those changes down to their children. For example, giraffes stretched their necks to reach food and because they stretched their necks that characteristic was passed down to their children. Sure, the school was just trying to discredit Darwin, but now you're telling me that nutcase's theory has merit?
You're thinking of Lamarckian evolution, which is completely unrelated to Wallace's conjecture discussed in the article and remains well-refuted to this day. Lamarckism was supplanted by Darwin's theory of natural selection.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
as the hitchhikers guide ot galaxy says
"and who was that god fella anyhow"
That's right folks.. a mutant with the ability to first post!
Ok, so I still need to master it, but still.
So now random mutations are not allowed to be totally random anymore? Or should I conclude that, somehow, evolution figured out (solely via random mutations, mind you) that totally random mutations are not such a good thing? When did this realization evolve? Was it a recent occurrence or has it been in the works from day one? I have the funny feeling that there is some weirdness in our forever-evolving evolutionary hypothesis that is just a little too weird. We are going to need an evolutionary hypothesis to explain our evolutionary hypothesis.
Maybe I'm missing something, but strip away all the hyperbole about this being news and to me all they've (re)discovered is that evolution tends to be smarter and more imaginative than mathematicians at solving control theory problems.
An imbalance caused by a mutation would be functionally similar to an imbalance of chemicals in the creature's environment, so I would expect systems that have evolved to be adaptable in the face of variable chemical inputs, as a side effect would tend to be resistant to mutations in the proteins in the chain. Faced with real-world chemistry, most mutated chains would still likely be vulnerable to rare/harsh conditions in the environment.
Scientists working on Polio (See Andino) have long since detected that viruses always live on the verge of mutating themselves to death to allow for the maximum variance in the quasispecies. When you add artificial mutagens they decrease their mutation rate (Ie only variants with a lower mutation rate survive). When you remove the pressure, they move back to a mutation rate which keeps variation high, but doesn't cause them to mutate themselves extinct. Obviously its possible for multicellular organisms to adopt similar mechanisms, I mean sex in general is a method for generating non-lethal varience.
"[...] concluding that it would be statistically impossible for this self-correcting behavior to be random [...]"
So these so-called "evolutionary mechanics" are found to exhibit a trait we describe with engineering metaphors.
But the article discounts the obvious indications of design by a inventing a self-refuting new term "evolutionary control".
Evolutionary products being "self-correcting" implies two things:
The article doesn't mention it, but I wonder how this interacts with retrovirus guided evolution.
(a random google link: http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/02/retroviruses-evolution.php)
Now I just have to figure out how to evolve me some adamantium claws.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
A cell's ability to mutate its own DNA is not a new discovery. For example, our immune system is purposely mutating constantly to make new antibodies to ward off disease. Also, when a cell purposely mutates, it still mutates in a somewhat random fashion. Just think... if our cells have the ability change their DNA to code for whatever they desired, would we still be fighting HIV/AIDS--or, for that matter, wouldn't everyone have large genitalia, like ScrewMaster suggests?--Clearly this article is a bit misleading. Yes, some cells purposely mutate their DNA. No, these cells cannot choose how to mutate based on a predicted result of said mutation.
so it's not a closed system. whose entropy are we increasing in order to control our own evolution?
I always knew Darwin was wrong.
Good try though!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Having quickly glanced through the paper it appears they have no clue what the hell evolution actually is. Where is the DNA sequence that is supposed to have changed? You altered one protein to screw it up and it didn't work to break the system? That's not evolution, that's just a system that can adapt and we've known for quite a long time that adaptation does not equal evolution.
..God is a protein now?
This isn't revolutionary. If you cut yourself, your body tries to heal the wound. If you practice an activity that you are awkward at, your body learns to do it more efficiently. Organisms that most effectively adapt to adversity are naturally selected. This has been naturally selected to happen at every level in an organism due to natural selection.
The organism isn't "controlling" its evolution as the article says. Evolution has selected the organisms that has a protein structure that can deal with an adverse situation. The ones that can't respond favorably were bred out of existence before the experiments even started.
It just looks like Princeton is trying to give themselves an award for something we all learned in fourth grade. I guess that's why the article is on the princeton.edu website though.
The ambiguity in the language of this report leaves so many possible interpretations that it is impossible to definitively understand what they are even talking about. For example "...proteins were correcting any imbalance imposed on them through artificial mutations, constantly restoring the chain to working order...steering organisms toward evolutionary changes that make the creature fitter."
Restore means to bring back to a former, original, or normal condition, while fitter has three meaning in the Biological sense: 1.being adapted to the prevailing conditions and producing offspring that survive to reproductive age; 2.contributing genetic information to the gene pool of the next generation; 3.(of a population) maintaining or increasing the group's numbers in the environment. The only definition that could work in context is "being adapted to the prevailing conditions." Proteins restoring the original information does not imply adaptation. I would say more of a self-preservation mechanism.
If to say, the cell is repairing itself as mutations are found, is nothing new. As far as I remember correctly, as the DNA is being copied it is also checked for irregularities. So wouldn't that mean the biological system is geared to prevent some parts of the mutation process?
To say the cell is recoding itself to make itself "stronger" or more adaptable to the environment, is that completely logical? Mutations can be caused by accidental DNA replication, or environmental affects. So what stimulus is the process receiving to create a "better" version of itself? What I'm trying to say is that without environmental effects the cell could be reorganizing itself into oblivion.
I enjoy this video. It's a very visual approach for people like me who really don't understand a whole lot about the complexity of the cell. In my opinion, for all the particle accelerators and spaceships we have, nothing comes close to this. And one last philosophical question. What determines randomness and order?
"Scientists Discover X-Gene. Patrick Stewart Unavailable for Comment."
-It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
"Evolutionary changes are supposed to take place gradually and randomly, under pressure from natural selection."
WRONG. In fact, this is one of the most common fallacies regarding evolution. It has been known for a very long time now that evolution proceeds in fits and starts... long periods of nothing followed by a burst of changes. This is known as "punctuated equilibrium", and is generally accepted as the standard evolutionary model.
I almost did not even read the linked article... since the beginning of it seems to be saying that evolution works exactly the way we have long known it to work.
There are actually some interesting things, there, though. On the other hand, the person who wrote the article obviously does not understand it.
Isn't it amazing how creationism changes how we use and understand language? The "entirely random" comment shouldn't cause us to recoil. The mutations were thought to be random, but now there's (supposedly) evidence that there's some kind of rudimentary optimization going on at the mutation level.
Now add a fanatical creationist movement that attacks "randomness" and uses bad analogies to confuse people. We all know how to rebut those specious arguments, but in doing so we learn to be wary of words like "random" in the context of evolution. In fact, both articles go through pains to point out that this discovery doesn't support creationism - a fact that should be self-evident.
And now we're complaining on slashdot about how a scientist uses words that were co-opted by creationists. I look forward to the day when creationism is universally recognized as a myth, and we can discuss evolutionary science in peace.
This is describing a self-repair mechanism.
RESTORING a damaged structure is not the same as STEERING the process of evolution, in fact what is being described is a feedback loop that slows down evolution. It's fairly straightforward to see how this can have evolved: if a section of DNA encodes a gene that is easily made inoperative through minor changes, then an organism in which these changes happen less often is more likely to survive.
This is no different than (say) biological structures that regulate the temperature of the genitals, reducing the chance of damage to DNA caused by higher temperatures. Like the scrotum.
This is an interesting mechanism, but it doesn't significantly change the model.
princeton.edu and io9.com are behind the times:
1) Darwin and his contemporaries knew that evolution is not random; mutations are random, but evolution is the application of natural selection to random variation resulting increased adaption of a population/gene pool to its circumstances
2) Gould and Dawkins (amongst thousands of others) have been stating that evolution is not gradual since at least the 90s. Search for 'punctuated evolution'.
3) Survival of the Sickest (Dr. Sharon Moalem, Harper Collins, 2006) explains at least one method for organisms to supplement DNA evolution with methylation of DNA at any stage from formation of gametes, through conception and gestation, to the end of an organism's life.
4) Survival of the Sickest also explains how organisms can use retroviruses and/or jumping genes to vary evolutionary rates across their genome.
The Princeton group, composed of researchers Raj Chakrabarti, Herschel Rabitz, Stacey Springs and George McLendon, haven't proven that intelligent design is a valid scientific theory. ...they haven't?. PHEW. That was a close one.
or not.. what the article has found is not just that organisms evolve but also some of them evolve to forms which are not going to evolve any more (think cockroaches) as they dont have the proteins which make them more suited to handle mutations in a favourable manner while other organisms do have these proteins and are better suited for further evolving. Now there may be organisms which evolve to superbly suit their niche in the ecosystem but in the process lose the capacity to further evolve. Such organisms(think dinosaurs) would rule over the more adaptable ones (think mammals) until some sudden event which requires rapid evolution comes along. In such a changed environment the old rulers could be wiped out if they couldnt eveolve fast enough and the losers may evolve to be the new rulers - The king is dead, long live the king. (Or in evolutionary terms - The dinosaurs are dead, long live the Primates). What is fun is that the scientists have found proteins involved in negative feedback of mutations and positive feedback of mutations. This means certain species could have only positive feedback control proteins which means any mutation they have go absolutely nuts as the mutations cause more mutations and so on. It would mean species which create new sub species at the drop of a hat. I am thinking tropical fish. If such control chains could be brought to humans it would speed up human evolution and differentiation which has pretty much stopped as our environment is too friendly nowadays (e.g. we dont leave the weakest to be eaten by the predator we build wheelchair ramps for them so no way are we going to evolve away from spinal bifidia). So if we want to evolve further either we go back to being animals and abandon the weak or speed up evolution by artificial means by destabilizing our DNA. This would mean knocking out some of the negative feedback control chains and adding extra positive feedback control chains. Yes these would create more kids to be born with birth defects but our society already takes good care of the handicapped but it would also lead to the birth of kids with unique abilities. So now we know how the X-Men can be created - knock out the control proteins.
**Life is too short to be serious**
has no victims. it happens between consenting adults
pedophilia involves children, who are incapable of informed consent. as such, they are being victimized
to prosecute pedophiles goes beyond the question of bigotry. pedophilia involves criminal physical transgression, not an act of intolerance. for example, not renting to a black person, that is intolerance. punching a black person in the face, that is assault. for both acts, the root cause may be racism, but the wrongful acts are different. likewise with pedophilia as compared to homosexuality
yes, pedophiles are probably born with their orientation like homosexuals, but because their sexual fixation involves a sexual attraction which can never be consummated without committing a criminal physical transgression, being born a pedophile is more like being born with sickle cell anemia or downs syndrome: a permanently disabling trait
just because you are born with a condition doesn't mean it is automatically ok. sometimes, that condition is fatal. and wanting to have sex with children is pretty much the same sort of death sentence: you will never be able to fulfill your sexual desires without committing a heinous crime, and so, you are permanently naturally and tragically damaged
the involvement of a child in a sexual act is impossible, for they can never participate in sex with adult freely, for they lack the faculties yet to be able to coherently choose sexual relations with an adult. there is no way around this. there is no way you can have sex with a child and not damage their self-esteem and how they view themselves, since that is still being psychologically formed. to be a pedophile is an innate sentence of sexual death, much like downs syndrome is a sentence of death for your intellectual life, or sickle cell anemia is a sentence of physical infirmary. life isn't fair, and there are no accomodations possible in any coherent and logical morality that allows pedophiles to get what they want. the victimization of children is something that cannot be condoned, under any sense of right and wrong
if i were a pedophile, i'd probably have myself castrated, and inject estrogen. even this wouldn't save me, as i know that pedophiles that are castrated still have desires to have sex with children, but it helps. so even with the castration and estrogen injections, i'd probably wall myself off from society, bercome like a monk, lest i ever be around a child in a moment of weakness. is this debilitating? absolutely. but if you have a sense of morality, you understand you have an obligation to do no harm to your fellow human beings. having sex with a child is a form of harm. you cannot commit that crime against a human being still in psychological formation, and consider yourself a good person
or consider yourself a bad person, commit your transgressions, and await the punishment you deserve from a society that wishes to protect its children, an absolutely unquestionably valid instinct, for moral, as well as simple biological reasons: the adult that does protect its children and allows them to be psychologically damaged, decreases their own potential to pass on their traits to future generations, and so fades form the earth. it is a moral, as well as evolutionary, imperative to protect your children from pedophiles
i myself, if i had a child, and they were victimized by a pedophile, god help me, i don't know if i could accept society's punishments, i would desire the death of that pedophile at my own hands. that perhaps goes beyond valid morality, but such is the strength of the parental instinct
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The answer is yes.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Actually, this new finding goes quite well with everything we knew about evolution so far.
A mechanism that was developed by an evolutionary process that controls evolution? I'm sure many of you heard about another such mechanism before. Many of you even saw documentaries about this process on the internet. Ah yes, sexual reproduction.
Sexual reproduction does EXACTLY that. This is a mechanism that was developed by an evolutionary process of random mutations and natural selection, and its sole process is to control the evolutionary process and change the way that random mutations are distributed and manifested.
The new research, therefore, does really change what we knew about evolution. It just reinforces it.
I'm sorry but the articles are a complete pile of banana peels
Of course organisms will evolve to evolve better, any organisms that do will have an advantage over those that don't. And sure all sort of mechanism have correcting features because else it would be a total mess in no time.
People (even a lot of scientists) just don't seem to grasp the concept of selection and evolution, it's really very frustrating to watch
Everyone keeps telling me that evolution is proven and that anyone would be an idiot not to believe it. Now apparently it doesn't work like we thought it works?
I don't deal in absolutes, then I won't ever be proven wrong when the next theory comes out.
Evolution as it is currently understood sounds plausible, but I am yet to be convinced.
or else!
Those proteins don't do their work. But I may be biased, I'm part of it.
Are you suggesting that I'm compensating?
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Ahhh, so we finally found that pesky God particle? :P
Sorry ... steers the organisms toward evolutionary changes that make the creature fitter? How the hell does an organism know what is going to be fitter?
It's called positive feedback, and in this case it seems to be working to the advantage of the organism rather than the disadvantage, unlike most positive feedback mechanisms. From what I can understand, it's basically a self-optimizing system able to self-correct for any errors, and select for any optimizations that occur in the process. Since this is happening at the molecular level where everything is following simple rules based on the laws of physics and chemistry, there is no conscious intervention required. There's no "knowing" required in a system evolved to make itself more efficient. It just follows the path of most gain for least effort. Any mutation that hinders that is corrected, and any mutation that enhances that is kept. THAT is why it is evolution (from what I understand. I haven't been able to read the actual paper. Someone more knowledgeable, please correct me if I'm misinterpreting things).
You know, considering this research has been published in a peer reviewed journal (10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.258103), you might want to give the researches the benefit of the doubt. Unless you are going to post credentials that match or beat theirs or their peer review board, I'm going to go ahead on the basis that their analysis is probably more correct than your kneejerk reaction.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
The above is the summary for the main stream press, dig a bit deeper and the story is subtly different. The headline could be taken to mean that an organism can control the direction of evolution, this is false: it is the rate of evolution that may be controlled.
This is akin to controlling the accelerator (gas pedal for those in the USA) not the steering wheel.
The ''choice'' on direction (good or bad mutation) will only ever be determined by how many grandchildren an organism has. If the mutation is helpful to survival then the greater number of grand kids will preserve the organism; if the mutation is not helpful then there will be fewer grand kids than for the helpful organism and thus the unhelpful mutation will be out competed by the helpful ones and so eventually drop out of the gene pool.
For many years evolutionists have known that mutation increases in times of stress. They have, however, thought that this was because stress leads to smaller populations in which (beneficial) mutations can propagate more quickly. It is this point that the Princeton paper is all about.
The trouble with discussion on evolution is that there are subtle arguments for which we do not have concise words to convey, we thus tend to use approximate short cuts but these short cuts bring along a baggage of undesirable implication.
For instance ''choice'' - no organism chooses good or bad mutations, if it has a bad mutation then it is more likely to die than a brother that has a good mutation. However we all use the word ''choice'' otherwise discussions on evolution would go on forever.
That Evolution is a meta-process (a process that acts on its self) is obvious to anybody that truely grasps neo-Darwinism and seperates the knowlegable from the dilettante.
Evolution is self selective, if something works it survives if it fails is falters, this applies just as much to the processes of evolution as it does to the things which evolve!
You're supporting this claim with two dictionary definitions and a Wikipedia article. Setting aside the question of how the hell a lexicographer's description of the meaning of the word can possible settle this point, let me just point out that: (a) the first dictionary entry you cite starts with a non-Bible literalist aception of the term; even worse, (b) the Wikipedia article you cite explicitly contradicts your point.
Did you even read what you cited?
Are you adequate?
Evolution is on a crude form the hability of one organism to adapt and survive on your environtment. A capacity for guide this adaptation for me is just another way to get sucess on adaptation
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
You have seen your brain evolving! Isn't evolution AMAZING! It even made it into an otherwise intelligent brain and did a design. There is nothing evolution cannot do!
The response to this article highlights one of my biggest problems with a large section of the science community.
The press release is a loud of baloney, like most press releases geared to the non-scientific community. It's a hard job, explaining such complex ideas to people with no background in the field is always going to be challenging and some fluff will need to be introduced. Only other alternative is to not do it at all, and then the creationists win.
However to attack the scientists who actually did the research is simply out of order. Even if they have overstepped the mark, even if what they have discovered is a load of crap, to mock them is simply not necessary.
Because we should value things that can be proven over those that cannot be disproven.
Things that have been proven, scientifically proven, are intrinsically more valuable than those that have not. And both are infinitely more valuable than ideas that can and never will be proven or disproven. Our leading scientific theories are proven facts which have been subjected to the highest level of scrutiny and standards.
Fuck this "Falisification" Bullshit! Evolution is a proven fact. Newtonian mechanics is a proven fact. General relativity is a proven fact. If you want to pull some falsification argument out of your ass or nitpick about thing not being compatible and how relativity "falsifies" Newtonian mechanics, then you can Fuck off back to your coding and your Wiki trips and let real scientists get back to doing their job . And that job is, yes, discovering the truth, not the myths or what we would like to be the truth. The Real Truth; which only science can provide.
I'm done with pandering to irrational people, and cultures, who refuse to let go of ridiculous and unsubstantiated beliefs. I'm sick of their rationalizations of totally irrational things, and I'm furious at their attempts to trivialize the importance of and depreciate the superiority, yes superiority, of the scientific method. There is nothing wrong with proclaiming its superiority and the manifest inferiority of and of the nonsense put forward as an alternative. We should not be afraid of telling people who believe ridiculous things that they are indeed ridiculous, and indeed ridiculing them when they obstinately persist in their unreason.
And the thing that gets me the most, is that by simply being honest, and expressing my honest opinions, even politely, I'll be regarded as a "militant". If I don't bow and scrap and perform becalming rituals before creationists, IDists, astrologists, philosophers, deists, theists, homeopaths, cultists, UFO nuts, conspiracy theorists, Holocaust denialists, AIDS denialists and any other Quack who spouts the first load of nonsense they can wrap in ten dollar words..... then I'm the Bad Guy!! I'm "oppressive", or "elitist", or "imperialist", or "bigoted", or "too scientifically minded". .... How Dare You!
I'm returning to the science of my childhood. That rock-solid method of investigating and understanding the universe through reason and experiment. There was nothing wrong with it and I'm ashamed that I ever listened or heeded the appeasers of unreason. It was and is a method infinitely superior to the rambling, incoherent, misleading, lies offered up by creationists and their ilk. I'm done with admitting the (ever dwindling)limits of science, and giving far more than due consideration to things I know to be totally and utterly wrong, just for the sake of not offending inunoffendable people. As you've probably guessed: "I'm Mad As Hell, And I'm Not Going To Take This Anymore!"
So, the next person who talks rubbish to me is going to get a piece of my mind. Politely perhaps, but not without barbs. I suggest that all reasonable Slashdotters who value science and its place in out society to do the same.
May the Maths Be with you!
Had a quick look and found no one, for one, has yet welcomed our new protein overlords. Our standards seem to have declined a lot and I hope our new overlords would not be too displeased.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I predict that the next big discovery will be that evolution is evolving is evolving.
An interesting book by Carl Sagan points out that the size of babies' heads seems to be bigger than women's pelvises were designed to handle
Which makes me wonder what the (in-universe) parents of this fellow went through at birth. Or these characters. Or these characters.
I don't get it. Creationists are wrong? I was sure dinosaurs were there to test our faith.
we're all Haggunenons;-)
Resides the blueprint for these proteins on the Y-chromosome...?
IANAB, but could this be a possible explanation of the Cambrian explosion? This protein group evolved some 580 million years ago leading to an explosion in complex organisms? Just a thought, what do you think?
Also, various processes contribute, and this may just be one more mechanism which contributes to evolution. This discovery does not make the previously understood evolutionary mechanisms invalid (except the notion that ONLY random chance mutations play a role), it simply adds another mechanism of change to them. Random mutations likely still DO contribute as well.
Can they not simply alter the mutation to "repair" (or effectively kill) "incorrectly" mutating cells, thereby killing cancer, and stopping evolution dead in its tracks by-the-by?
...sounds like an intelligent design to me
I believe that we program our own offspring DNA by facing adversity and adapting. Of course it's not a conscious thing or even an immediate thing. There is part of our DNA which remembers what happens to us. It flips gene switches after repeated issues in multiple generations. Think about it. If you raise 5 generations of mice in total darkness, at least one offspring will be born blind in the newest generation. Reproduction is very much a trial and error type of thing. Only those with the correct adaptations survive, or those most able to adapt to rapidly changing conditions.
Humans are very adaptable. We have a greater range that 90% of animals on Earth. That's why we're so successful. That and our giant brains.
They're using their grammar skills there.
...evolutionarily speaking, we are the way we are today because our distant evolutionary ancestors wanted to be this way? The most obvious question to that comes to mind then is why did we want to be the way we are now, if we started out so much less complex? In particular, how could a less complex system guide itself towards being more structured than it originally has the framework to cope with?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Your post reminds me of the web-based Novell exam i did recently. Specifically when i opened an xterm and wanted to delete the word on the left side of the cursor. Imagine my surprise when Firefox asked me if i really wanted to close the entire browser and thereby finishing my exam.
I wish I could say "You must be new here"... Actually I thought it was an admirable first post. Slashdot likes to blend Science and Democracy.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Shocked and surprised to see no mention of this in relation to Larmarck's early theory of evolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism
The classic example was of Giraffe's evolving long necks by stretching to reach the leaves of tall trees, etc.
But I guess I'm not surprised that the researchers don't want to associate with former theories that have already faced some effort to remove mention from textbooks.
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I am sure Scott Adams is gloating over this one.
"Evolutionary changes are supposed to take place gradually and randomly, under pressure from natural selection." Evolutionary changes are not "suppose" to do anything. Modern Evolution Theory is a collection of models and hypotheses. Much of the finer points of genomic adaptive mechanisms are tentative. This recent should surprise no one, except ideologues committed to a certain mindset.
What I wonder is just how much of the "junk DNA" (stuff we simply don't understand) is nature's toolkit of pre-evolved solutions that can be brought back out for new critters? We've seen examples of convergent evolution, say the Triceratops and rhino. Both last had a common ancestor hundreds of millions of years ago, mammals split off from lizardy creatures a long, long time ago. But we can see that for the need of large plains-dwelling herbivores who need to protect themselves from predators, the body structure is remarkably similar. But this is all supposed to be convergent, nothing really shared except for the common genetic material millions of years back.
But when we take a look at recent mammalian mega-fauna, we see woolly rhinos as well as woolly mammoths. Were those woolly coats independently evolved or were they part of the same genetic grab-bag? Mammals with coats that change during the seasons, independent or grab-bag? What evolutionary pressures could cause our modern elephants to sprout mammoth-style coats?
I'm no expert but I'm guessing we'll eventually find more proof to support punctuated equilibrium and all that's remaining is details on how the genetics of it work out.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I nominate this post for best car analogy, 2008.
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
If this is such an important finding regarding evolution, it should be appearing in a journal relevant to biology, or maybe chemistry. The journal Science seems an ideal place to publish this if the science is that good.
Physical Review Letters? That's a physics journal. If the paper appears in a journal focused on the wrong scientific discipline, how good can it be?
If I intelligently Designed Myself, that means I AM GOD!!!! I always knew it. Now to have it confirmed by science, wow.
This research and the following articals is nothing but bullshit. It didn't stand up to peer-review progress.
See here.
http://www.scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/11/prediction_selfpromoting_hype.php
I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations -- so common and multiform with organic beings under domestication, and in a lesser degree with those under nature -- were due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation. Some authors believe it to be as much the function of the reproductive system to produce individual differences, or slight deviations of structure, as to make the child like its parents. But the fact of variations and monstrosities occurring much more frequently under domestication than under nature, and the greater variability of species having wider ranges than of those with restricted ranges, lead to the conclusion that variability is gneerally related to the conditions of life to which each species has been exposed during several successive generations.
And so on. Yet, as careful as Charles Darwin was to not overstate what he knew, and not to exaggerate his confidence in his own hypotheses, each new insight into genetics is announced in the same arrogant tone of condescension, like an underachiever turned schoolteacher, with an overactive red pen:
What they are saying is that evolution is not entirely random, as Darwin believed.
... said the flat Earth, Creationist, mouth-breather. In fact, Darwin never asserted any such thing.
Their work seems to confirm ideas held by Darwin's colleague Alfred Wallace, who co-discovered the theory of evolution. Wallace believed that life forms undergoing natural selection could adjust their evolutionary course "exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident."
"Exactly"? What part of the Princeton team's report says that this mechanism depends on rotation or angular momentum of the newly-discovered proteins?
In other words: Wallace believed that organisms had a kind of evolutionary feedback control mechanism.
Oh, "in other words," nice try! See how the paraphrase supports the Wallace-was-right-and-Darwin-was-wrong editorial bias of the author, but the direct quote does not? Disgusting.
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p
Just because somebody is writing for a less technically expert audience is no excuse for sensationalism, and far less for the scientifically illiterate misstatement already noted before the article was even posted on Slashdot.
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p
This is the best description of what the paper is likely about, from mr_roboto over on metafilter:
http://www.metafilter.com/76452/Darwin-extended#2336682
"This paper involved two research efforts: first, the authors developed a history of the evolution of a certain class of proteins. That is, they came up with a model that described which mutations occurred to proteins in this class, mutation by mutation, since proteins that look like these proteins first appeared. They looked at how each of these mutations changed a certain property of the proteins, and found that rather drifting gradually through all possible values of this property, each mutation forced the property to go to an extreme of its possible values: either maximizing it or minimizing it.
In the second part of the work, they applied a mathematical theory called "optimal control theory" to the history developed in the first part. This theory allows for the creation of a bunch of mathematical abstractions corresponding to "systems" with "inputs" and "outputs", and it describes how to most efficiently change a system such that, given a defined input, it produces a desired output. It turns out that the evolutionary history of this class of proteins is consistent with a kind of optimal control; that is, the mutations that appear over the history of this class of proteins--those same mutations that flip back and forth between a set of extremes--behave as if they are determined by an efficient solution to a control problem."
Metafilter also links to the paper itself (behind a paywall):
http://scitation.aip.org/getpdf/servlet/GetPDFServlet?filetype=pdf&id=PRLTAO000100000025258103000001&idtype=cvips&prog=normal
Complexity Happens
Yes, the environment can certainly lead to changes in gene expression patterns. And yes, sometimes some of these can be heritable. Note that it's *not* a mutation in the DNA code itself, but a modification to the packaging proteins that DNA is bound to. This doesn't change the gene sequences but can control how strongly the gene is expressed (and possibly which form of a given gene is expressed), if at all. This can happen through several mechanisms that I'll admit I don't know a huge amount about: acetylation of histones, DNA methylation, etc. There's a well-written layman's introdution in this New Scientist article if you're interested.
However, I've never heard of these "epigenetic" changes affecting big, morphological features which tend to be *strongly* conserved:
If you raise 5 generations of mice in total darkness, at least one offspring will be born blind in the newest generation.
My first reaction is pretty strong septicism, so if you can point me to a reputable source for that, I'd be fascinated to read it.
If you're saying that environmental stresses directly lead to actual controlled and heritable changes in the DNA sequence, I'm even more skeptical and would really love to see a source.
I had a graduate student (also at Princeton, while chatting on a lawn by the Graduate College) tell me something like this twenty years ago -- that the corrective mechanisms for genetic information stop working as well when organisms (like bacteria) are stressed, leading to a greater mutation rate (which in turn can help deal with the stress via allowing a higher mutation rate).
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I'm so sick of the Fundies making the rest of us look like idiots.
Good, I'm glad that they offend you, too.
Because, as a scientist and atheist, I know they offend me, but the facts that they continue to have public platforms and occasional majority votes sometimes makes me wonder about religious folk who call yourselves "moderates" and your tolerance of intolerance, as long as it's practiced in the name of faith.
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p
This news is late.
Read Survial of the Sickest.
Scientists can't even agree on how evolution works! How are we supposed to believe anything they say now?
(Note to the sarcasm-impaired: I am hereby invoking Poe's Law.)
I always thought Lamarckian Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamark/ was poo poo. Maybe we need to look at it again given recent discoveries like this one and finding that disease can change DNA and get passed on.
pithy comment
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"The scientists do not know how the cellular machinery guiding this process may have originated, but they emphatically said it does not buttress the case for intelligent design, a controversial notion that posits the existence of a creator responsible for complexity in nature."
Religion must express itself. My religion is more scientific than yours. Nyah! In reality this could be construed to support ID. Why not? Facts are like that. You can fit them into any number of bigger pictures. If you start with God, you will get... God. If you start with no god you will get... no god.
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Having read the sources cited in the article, I'm left wondering how they're extrapolating a bio-feedback mechanism regarding evolution from an adaptation/feature of how individual cells adapt to variable energy available to 'burn', based purely off a statistical analysis *shudder*.
What am I missing, people?
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle
A scientifically minded atheist is right to dismiss the religious as their claims don't seem credible in light of their worldview.
The religious person is right to dismiss the atheist since that could lead to a loss of faith, and in turn to being tricked by the Devil.
Each is right in the context of their own overriding belief. (That religion X either is / isn't true.)
Independent of who is right about any of your stupid questions
To get back on topic though, if you say "God is responsible for everything", is he why I ate a peanut butter sandwich today instead of a hamburg? Did I have no choice? Does He allow Humans free will, but nothing else happens except by His explicit will? I find it odd that he would allow the appearance of geological processes but not the processes themselves. (Or was the woman wrong and the rock was made by the Devil to encourage my geological falsehoods?)
... ... etc., etc.
o prove ID, you'd need some sort of signature. Something like a particular action that could be performed that would put a person into a trace, after which they would recite some message from the creator, paraphrased into their language. You would need to be able to go to some primitive tribe and do this with them as well as with people from more civilized countries. Perhaps aliens DID create us, but even if it's true
The first important question is who has the right. And the answer is always, whoever makes it our task to be free from compulsion. Once that is answered, we return to our pursuits of happiness, which is "the task at hand" only after we are free to pursue it. Until then, we battle against the tyranny of the mindless. Back to the context of the current task at hand, the scientific pursuit of knowledge, religious dogmas are constantly attempting to intrude on the process. The faithful have no complaint, only fault in this context. Your false equivalences are not welcome and not worthy of respect. I do bite my finger, and at you, sir.
The stakes for each are too high to compromise.
Christian: hell, and possibly helping to lead others to hell.
Atheist: promoting known falsehoods instead of helping society move beyond them. (And by doing so encouraging holy wars, repression / oppression, ritual mutilation, inability to think for oneself as a result of a life of conditioning, wastes of $ on tithes, making bad decisions based on faulty data (the pi = 3 fear) etc)
"Compromise" is valid when both sides are partly right, which is here not the case. Pay to God what is God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's. And pay me for my time.
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p
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In all the discussions about evolutionary processes being the result of natural selection resulting from the effects of random mutations you don't (at least I haven't) see a discussion of the effects of the biological changes to the survivors of retrovirus infections.
I suppose some will argue that the effects on the immune systems & DNA--of individuals (& communities), caused by surviving retrovirus infections--is a type of "random mutation"; it seems to me that point of view is naive.
I believe that the fact that retroviruses exist in the first place is highly significant to the process of evolutionary change; indeed the evolution of retroviruses--and the impact of retroviruses on evolution probably dwarfs the effect of random mutation.
I think its legitimate to wonder if--by comparison--random mutation has ever played a really significant role. In point of fact, in the early 1800's when Darwin and his cohorts were developing their TOE, there was not yet a well developed Germ Theory. THAT did not take place until the late 1800's; and the discovery of retrovirues not until the 20th century.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I think that while natural selection is significant, truely random mutation probably hasn't had as large an impact on evolution as other sources of change.
Uh, atheism a "scientific mis-adventure"?! :-)
You are more or less setting an equal sign between atheism and Gould's lack of intellectual honesty??:-)
Sorry, but I can't take that seriously -- are you trolling? My point was that Dawkins is upset about people having opinions based on dreams or theories which they were psychologically unable to verify. Say, like Son of Sam...
You might as well call it unscientific when I say that I am certain that Son of Sam's "god" doesn't exist. Or Cthulhu. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
AFAIK, PE was also overblown in the public writing -- just another way to detract evolution, because the Marxists wanted to lessen the "risk" of evolutionary insights that were negative for Marxist theory. If you have a consensus of modern evolutionary (non-marxist) biologists that contradict that, by all means.
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Uhm, for all I know, I don't really exist (the old philosophy idea with a brain in a box, see the Matrix; or a simulation). I think Dawkins would agree with that.
As far as we know, the Earth might be flat. It is quite easy to create models that explain all observations. Hell, there are better witnesses that Elvis still lives than there are of any God.
To say that the Muslim/Jewish/Xian/etc/etc/etc God(s) doesn't exist is like saying that the FSM or Santa Claus doesn't exist. So, you also argue that Santa Claus exist.
Somewhere you have to draw the line for low possibilities and use Occam's razor -- the earth isn't flat, Santa Claus and all the other mythological creatures don't exist.
That people still go around making claims without any basis except in their own psychology is disgusting. Being fans of e.g. Tolkien's elves is a quality difference to claiming that angels exist.
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If I really wasn't clear:
Your argument is too strong if it equally shows that Santa Claus exists as much as the supernatural creature you want to exist. It is a traditional problem with a certain type of Ghod "proofs" that they prove everything (including Son Of Sam's God, Santa Claus and the FSM).
If you want someone to hold something for true, you have to show support for your claim. Since the way that supernatural creatures might exist is literally infinite -- like real numbers, not integers (Google for "diagonal argument", if you haven't read those courses). The number of types (according to all religions I know of) of supernatural beings are finite and there are no supporting data for their existence (at least, much less than for that Elvis lives). The probability of a given ones existence is then for all practical purposes zero -- without any support.
As a supporting point:
Consider the way the different theories about supernatural monsters contradict each others. So at most a small subset of those theories can be true. The psychology of belief in the religions are very similar (afaik about theological psychology; I'd be interested in any contradicting references?). All religions I'm aware of claims to be inspired by their ghods. Since the religions are contradicting each others, if one religion is true then the other religions are not inspired by anything or by a devil. Then something other than their god can inspire the same psychology in believers -- which is contradicted by all religions I'm aware of.
All this is well known and discussed. Please go take a beginning course in philosophy, many go over this from the beginning.
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In your answer, you pretend I just attacked Gould for his political opinions on another matter. My original point was that scientists in two areas accuse Gould of being intellectually dishonest in his public writing. AFAIK, that do include the PE you discuss.
Also, if some scientist is documented as intellectually dishonest it is no use to read their public work -- because we don't know the subject and can't tell when they are misrepresenting. So again -- give serious references if you want to show that PE is "kosher" among real evolutionary biologists.
I am a bit shocked that you don't find it disgusting when ideologists lie to make their opinions more popular among the general public. Personally, I have changed my opinions about most everything in my life. And I will change them again. I don't identify with my opinions -- I identify with wanting to be right.
Unless you have something interesting to say, goodbye. I hope I have enlightened someone -- and not wasted time on a troll. (But in that case, it must be a waste of your time when people just patiently gives more details without becoming angry.)
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An answer is already in the first two paragraphs in what you commented on, troll. (Is this some homage to Gould -- ignoring what the other side writes looks similar to the link I gave at the top of this garbage thread?)
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First you refuse multiple times to give a relevant answer, then you claim to already have answered -- without a reference. You really is sad even for a troll. (The funniest part is still that atheism is unscientific and as bad as being intellectually dishonest!. At the time, I assumed you could be a complete idiot and not a bad troll, but now I can only say "Get a life, sad troll; you're so bad people just explain facts to you instead of getting angry.".)
Yet again, what you can't give a relevant answer to -- and if you claim to have done that -- linky linky, liar.
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