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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."
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.
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.
Reading the article, my guess is that this is a lot of nonsense that is going to leave the authors with red faces.
"What they are saying is that evolution is not entirely random, as Darwin believed"
WTF?? Darwin was the one that explained the process FFS! This more than anything shows that the authors have no idea what they are talking about. Expect to see it in the next Discovery Institute press release.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
If so, you should probably get it right. Not all creationist think that the earth is 6,000 years old. For that matter, very few do. Just like all stereotypes, what very few do gets the entire group labeled.
But the earth being 6000 years old is a possible conclusion of creationism. That's why it attracts ridicule as a theory. If it leads you down that road, it just might be the road that's silly, not just the house at the end of the road that says "6000 years and not one day more."
FWIW, creationism could still be exactly true and it still would never be science. It makes no predictions, and is not falsifiable. It may be a theory, but it's not a scientific theory. A scientific theory has certain criteria that creationism does not meet.
And that is why it attracts scorn here. This is a place for science-types. You'd probably have better luck on some board devoted to theology rather than Slashdot.
It's not racism or bigotry. It's exasperation with people who believe in creationism and insist it be taught alongside other scientific theories, even though it simply doesn't belong there.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
well, ignoring the fact those are not sexual orientations , if someone is attracted to children but doesn't act on it, then why should they be discriminated against or punished? likewise with someone who has incestuous feelings. heck, if two consensual adults engage in incestuous acts, that's their own business. as long as they aren't hurting anyone, why should they be persecuted for the way they are mentally wired?
and just because it's wrong to discriminate against people based on their innate or inborn disposition doesn't mean people can't be held responsible for their actions which are conscious decisions. you can't choose who/what you're attracted to. but you can choose what beliefs you espouse and personally believe in.
If the only thing keeping my penis small is a feedback loop, then it should not be too hard to create a drug that interrupts that feedback loop.
I hate to be "that guy" who talks embryology when discussing the next big breakthrough in spam ads, but pretty much everything in embryonic development seems to be controlled by several different fundamental systems. The same signaling pathways that regulate how many layers of skin you grow in utero are the same signaling pathways used to control development of your intestines and brain, to name a few.
That becomes a more complex problem than even the ethics involved in designer babies: you mess with one thing, it usually has serious consequences elsewhere. So if you were to find the feedback loop and break it, it would likely cause severe developmental problems.
Even if you did manage to not mess up other development, there could still be indirect issues. Brain development is one area that human evolution seems to have pushed of course. 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, but they're already pretty much at their limits as well: any bigger and women would have a hard time walking. It also points out that humans seem to be in the minority when it comes to pain during birth.
In other words, the human brain is already somewhat too big for our own good. Fortunately for the species and men in particular, that's mostly an issue that women have to compensate for at very limited times.
With the other thing, that might not be the case. The most obvious negative consequence there would be if you were so huge you were no longer physically able to mate.