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Genetic Convergent Evolution: Stunning Gene Similarities Among Diverse Animals
Toe, The writes "It has long been understood that completely different animals can end up with very similar traits (convergent evolution), and even that genes can converge. But a new study shows an unbelievable level of convergence among entire groups of genes. The study shows that animals as diverse as bats and dolphins, which independently developed echolocation, converge in nearly 200 different genomic regions concentrated in several 'hearing genes.' The implications are rather deep, if you think about it, delving into interesting limitations on diversity or insights into the potential of DNA. And perhaps more importantly, this finding goes a long way toward explaining why almost aliens in the universe look surprisingly identical to humans (though still doesn't explain why they all speak English)."
Not to pooh-pooh this study, but dolphins and bats aren't as far apart as say, bats and moths. If a fish or reptile converged with a mammal that would be more "unbelievable". I think we're in "Oh, cool," territory more than "WHAT????"
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I got my PhD in statistical genetics. Why should we equate genetic homology to evolutionary homology? All these studies that speak of a hypothetical Adam or Eve assume that the same mutations could not have arisen independently in different parts of the world.
It simply proves that through a process of survival of the fittest, English is evolving at the expense of weaker languages into the perfect language. :-)
Eventually all you will have is English, and all the programming languages derived from it.
Bob.
And perhaps more importantly, this finding goes a long way toward explaining why almost aliens in the universe look surprisingly identical to humans
I know this is tongue in cheek humor, but -- NO, IT DOES NOT DO ANYTHING OF THE SORT! DNA is chemical in origin and so goes, different chemical compositions of different planets would give rise to vastly different DNA compositions resulting in life nothing like our own.
They all speak English because they've been watching all our old shows that have been beamed into space for decades.
why almost aliens in the universe look surprisingly identical to humans
And just what are "Almost Aliens"? All I can think of is that they are aliens that claim to have been born in Hawaii.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
My understanding of the slashdot summary is that what you are saying is exactly the point of the study or at least the point that the author of the slashdot blurb wanted to make. No idea why someone labelled this with "intelligent design" as that means no evolution at all.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
Could this have anything to do with horizontal gene transfer ?
I'm not sure I understand why this is surprising to the researchers ... I mean, if the independent evolution of certain abilities in diverse species happens, doesn't it make sense that it would be expressed in the genetic code in the same ways ? And isn't it true that many collections of genes tend to be responsible for the manifestation of physiological attribute rather than just a few ? So doesn't it make sense that complex physiological abilities like echo location would require a lot of genetic commonalities to manifest in different species?
Put another way echolocation requires specialization of vocal, aural and cerebral apparatuses in order to work ... so knowing that several genetic sequences are usually responsible for narrow physiological attribute manifestations, why would we expect only a handful of common gene sequences?
IANAT
You're almost there with talking about cards, but you've got the wrong one. It's actually down to aliens learning English from American Express application forms. It's all documented in So long and thanks for all the fish.
Maybe the genes didn't mutate but were somehow forced into commonality by similar ancestral proto-ecolocation behavior.
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
If there is a Creator of life, then we would expect to see the blueprints used for more than one construction site...perhaps even more than one planet. Alternatively, however, if we are all actors in a play that no one wrote, then randomness would be expected to create more genetic diversity.
Only it's entirely credible. That is entire premise of a peer-reviewed publication.
You know your argument is worthless when it hinges entirely on nitpicking common expressions.
.: Semper Absurda
Epigenetics does in general not change or mutate genes(*).
At least the most common examples for epigenetics are cases where a gene's activity has been increased or decreased, which can be explained by molecules attaching to the DNA. The study is talking about evolution, hence mutation, and not about epigenetics.
(*)Of course, someday someone will find a rare example where epigenetics actually changes the mutation rates of genes.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
You are claiming that a single scientist using a single word to express surprise to a science journalist is somehow supportive of the intelligent design fallacy - irrationality which is well matched to your rambling prose.
.: Semper Absurda
Okay, so you retract your implication that my three words were the -only- argument I have for it, which you knew via your psychic powers, and now state only that I consider it "supportive" of it, correct?
In fact, given the broadness of how one might interpret those three words, I suggest that the sole reason you formed the interpretation you did, and the objection you did, is -you yourself- find it "supportive", and now are denying your own evaluation of your own brain, and projecting who has an issue onto me and Dr. Parker.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Then the evidence is overwhelmingly pointing to no creator. The genes that code for intelligence in corvid birds and chimpanzees are different. The genes that code for wings in birds, bats, insects, and pterasaurs are completely different. The genes that code for white fur and similar looking white filaments in plants are way off. Wouldn't a creator just reuse white fur on cotton plants? The genetic diversity across the seven kingdoms and the millions of species is vast, with genetic convergence the extremely rare exception, not the rule (hence why this is newsworthy). Sorry, your own argument points to there being no creator.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I don't know if this is true. Some life contains compounds made up of elements that don't exist in other forms of life. Tungsten, for example. Quoth wikipedia: "Tungsten, at atomic number 74, is the heaviest element known to be biologically functional, with the next heaviest being iodine (Z = 53). It is used by some bacteria, but not in eukaryotes. For example, enzymes called oxidoreductases use tungsten similarly to molybdenum by using it in a tungsten-pterin complex with molybdopterin (molybdopterin, despite its name, does not contain molybdenum, but may complex with either molybdenum or tungsten in use by living organisms). "
"And perhaps more importantly, this finding goes a long way toward explaining why almost aliens in the universe look surprisingly identical to humans"
Since we're going off-tangent here, I'd say this finding goes a long way toward explaining why a Galaxy S looks surprisingly identical to an iPhone. Similar function, similar form. If you want a device with a touch screen and you want it in the sleekest form factor, with few hardware buttons and maximum screen real estate, you will come up with an iPhone. Or a Galaxy S.
To perform the analysis, the team had to sift through millions of letters of genetic code using a computer program developed
to calculate the probability of convergent changes occurring by chance, so they could reliably identify ‘odd-man-out’ genes.
I was following a different train of thought; trying to support it came across this:
"In the traditional approach, the dynamic programming based pair-wise alignment is used for measuring the similarity between two sequences.
This method does not work well in a large data set."
http://link.springer.com/static-content/lookinside/465/chp%253A10.1007%252F3-540-45554-X_47/000.png
Paywall, the above is all there is. Text mining techniques were used in the research.
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F3-540-45554-X_47
Hoang Kiem and Do Phuc (snicker, he said...).
They were all very intelligently designed by the Great Programmer. There's even code reuse.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Sorry, there've been bats since the early Eocene around 52 million years ago, and since the ancestor of cetaceans came from land around 30 million years ago (and had no reason for echolocation), the trait was developed as they evolved into ocean going creatures while bats were happily echo locating the whole while. Sorry, interesting hypothesis... how did you account for echo locating genes getting back from cetacean to land dwelling animals?
A whale and a bat breed?... that is just sick beyond imagining.
The junk is fast becoming an area of serious study. the fact that it doesn't encode protein seems to belie the fact that it controls morphology, gene expression, and in fact looks to be fractal in nature and incredibly information rich.
You can of course water down the "intelligent design" claims until they don't mean that much anymore, but originally the term was used in contrast to natural evolution (including natural selection). "intelligent design" implies that someone had a specific design in mind when he/she/it started designing. Such a property however has not even been postulated in the religious books as far as I can recall. Therefore, what you really want to call such an argument is called "directed evolution", not "ID".
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
This also relates to ID in another way: it forces some people to reconsider the theories which so many consider to be authoritarian law.
Mind you, I have my own favorite commonly held evolutionary variant, to which this is no surprise at all.
But I really do favor letting creationists and ID'ers have a place at the scientific podium, because nothing drives science forward so mercilessly fast as losing a debate to a creationist.
And yes, I do also believe God made the universe and Earth and walked among us. But one variant of evolution is HOW I think He made life on Earth.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Simple convergent evolution explains why Vulcans, Betazoids, and Klingons (sometimes) look so much like humans, but this genetic analysis explains* why hybrids such as Spock, Deanna Troi, and B'Elanna Torres are genetically possible.
*ignoring ST:TNG "The Chase"
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
This finding is more likely to be proof that all earth life evolved from an alien settlement marooned here. The aliens (and some of their food source plants/animals) devolved and evolved to all the animals and plants on the earth, which is why most species will have many genes in common. (Think Galapagos)
The only alternative I can think of is viral transmission. Dolphin gets flu with and flu virus adds dolphin genes, flu travels interspecies and bats catch it, and capture some of the genes from flu virus.
Both of those explanations are more inherently probable than convergent evolution as speculated. Wow, work out THAT improbability, then multiply by 50!
I'm a Bible-thumping Christian,* but I think Douglas Adams was on to something when the God in the Hitchhiker universe declared himself so openly that faith was no longer required, and instantly disappeared in a puff of logic.
Now, I'm not saying Adams was literally correct, but a God that asks us to have faith and a God that is so visible that faith is not required seems like an odd juxtaposition.
*Don't assume my reading of the Bible lines up exactly with any particular liberal or conservative reading of the Bible.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A whale and a bat breed?... that is just sick beyond imagining.
Not according to rule 34.
You might have told this in jest but...
Our old show have become non distinguishable from noise within a few to a few hundred AU. Some narrowband concentrated general signal might have gotten within a light year. maybe. The only signal we know for sure would be audible afetr 1 light year, were the few sent from arecibo S band, and a few others. In the whole history of mankind , we are talking about 1 hour or 2 worth of transmission time (and they were narrow band, high power radio signals intentionally sent for a distant galaxy if i remember correctly... M31 ?). Your basic TV ? By pluto it is non distinguishable to background noise.
Basically, unless your hypothetical aliens were already deep within the center of our solar system, they would not hear our TV shows.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
you mean 'predicted', then yes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"If there is a Creator of life, then we would expect to see the blueprints used for more than one construction site"
I could put together an argument that says the exact opposite.
"Alternatively, however, if we are all actors in a play that no one wrote, then randomness would be expected to create more genetic diversity."
Only if you are clueless about evolutionary theory.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We may as well go all the way with your slippery-slope, and stipulate that by your terms, the human body must be immortal, because by your criteria any death would equally be a "design flaw".
But your premise is entirely erroneous. It is never suggested that this is the design intent (in fact, to be explicit regarding one ID scenario, it says we were made "good", not "perfect"--"perfect" being reserved for a future potentiality). Secondly, we have inevitable secondary consequences to such a "design objective" (if there were some reason to say it must be the objective, other than your whim)--such as overpopulation. Further, we have exacerbating circumstances (such as environmental damage) that are quite of our own making.
In short, this argument is a Straw Man based on the notion that the actual design objectives are to be determined by you, not the designer. And your design objectives wouldn't work.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
a God that asks us to have faith and a God that is so visible that faith is not required seems like an odd juxtaposition.
It's not that He is visible to the point of not needing faith. Obviously that is not the case. Rather, there is ample evidence of His work to base that faith on.
Take the comment below about the "Great Programmer": the genetic *code* is just that -- digital bits that are lined up in a specific order and INTERPRETED by another entity according to a set of rules. We see that in our own language and we immediately accept it as the product of an intelligent mind. But when we see that in our cells we eschew this interpretation because of the implications. That is evidence, even if we don't like it.
Okay, let's consider sex (always a good thing to consider). Genesis in the Bible says that God created two sexes, male and female. Now, if there is no Creator with a building plan, then we might expect to see more variety in the area of reproduction among us higher animal types rather than the standard male/female stuff we are so used to. For example, there is no need for separate male and female sexes. One individual could carry both male and female reproduction equipment and use either depending on the need, yet that is very rare and uncommon. Or, we could reproduce asexually but, again, that is very rare. Well, of course all of the mitochondria in your body have reproduced asexually, but I digress. The point here is that both the Bible and our observations point to at least the possibility of a plan by a master builder.
Almost, but not quite there, I presume... Well, almost all aliens look like us, *and* speak english, because the B5 casting director made *sure* they could speak "engrish".. although I was never quite sure about Londo...;-)
The are no "design flaws" or "design objectives" of any kind, because there is no design.
Susceptibility to deleterious mutations does reduce fitness. Some species, such as humans and rats are quite susceptible somatic cell mutations, leading to a variety of cancers. Others, such as sharks, do not have this particular genetic weakness. On the other hand, death after reproduction has no effect on individual fitness whatsoever, although it could increase the fitness of the species as a whole by reducing resource contention.
You might bother to apply at least a little though exploring simple corollaries of evolution by natural selection before making up nonsense - or at least you might if you weren't an arational, religious wacko.
.: Semper Absurda
Okay, let's consider sex (always a good thing to consider). Genesis in the Bible says that God created two sexes, male and female. Now, if there is no Creator with a building plan, then we might expect to see more variety in the area of reproduction among us higher animal types rather than the standard male/female stuff we are so used to.
Then consider it. The most common form of reproduction in the world is asexual. Hermaphroditism is also quite common. It is also not uncommon for species to flip sexes depending on environmental queues, even in multicellular species as complex as fish and amphibians. Hell, there are species of fish in which the male is absorbed into the female and becomes a new set of gonads for her! Even the more familiar male/female dynamics are not clearcut. Many species have neuters. Others have evolved complex behavioral patterns which create de facto sexes.
The point here is that both the Bible and our observations point to at least the possibility of a plan by a master builder.
Your bible talks about two sexes because humans generally have two sexes(and this is not even universal). It's an attempt to explain sexual dimorphism with no knowledge of genetics or evolution. In short, your bible IS an observation, not a second source of information useful for corroboration. It is just a non sequitur to assert otherwise.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
It is unfortunate that the same study can provide support for either belief. ... To come to the conclusion that because we found many similarities across different organisms is a proof of God or an Intelligent Designer is... to be generous, a leap.
The reason you can see "obvious" evidence for Evolution and he can see "obvious" evidence for ID is that the data NEVER SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. (my apologies for shouting.) We gather a set of numbers or letters, measurements of what we observe, then we INTERPRET them based on a fundamental set of assumptions that stem from our worldview. In your case, you start with the assertion that Evolution is true, then ask how can this data fit in the framework of my beliefs? He, in turn, would start with a different set of assumptions that would lead him to interpret the same data differently.
So yes, it makes sense that you would consider it a great leap to arrive at the conclusion that the data support his view. After all, it would be a leap *outside* your worldview, beyond the boundaries of your assumptions and beliefs. Yes, that's a scary leap as well if I may say so.
However, I have to call "foul" on your borrowed analogy of the computer programmers, since most coders are *intelligent*. You would, at the least, be comparing gods rather than natural processes. The current theories of mutation and natural selection would be perfectly blind and dumb, since natural selection can only act after the fact. I heartily object to many scientists' referring to natural selection as if it were an intelligent, loving hand guiding Evolution.
Letting ID'ers/creationists have a place at the podium doesn't push science forward, it just means scientists have to waste time learning how to debate, and debates are never long enough to really get into a topic in enough depth to push it forward scientifically. If they want to contribute to science then they need to learn how to practice science, and have enough integrity to admit when they are wrong. Many creationist debaters will happily re-use arguments even after they have been shown to be factually wrong. They simply aren't interested in pushing science forward, they are only interested in defending their religious beliefs from scientific facts that they view as conflicting with their beliefs. If they were genuinely interested in the science then it would be different.
Fair enough.
It might be useful for me to clarify my stance on a few things in reference to your comments here, now that this has become an actual discussion beyond my 3-word quip we started with.
There are a lot of different viewpoints under the general term "ID" (which I take to mean as scoping to exactly what it says, no more, no less--design by an intelligence, how and "who" being independent questions that are largely philosophical rather than scientific, at least at this point).
I do not question that a great deal of explanatory power is offered by reference to standard mechanisms of natural selection. I do not dispute that the Earth is billions, not thousands, of years old.
And, indeed, my knowledge of genetics is limited--I am a software developer by profession. What troubles me here at Slashdot, though, is a kind of automatic dismissal of even inquiring into the possibility of design as a causal factor in our genetic makeup. I do believe that it is often the case, now that the topic has become very politically polarized, that the naturalistic evolution position overstates its case, on particular issues, as "fact" when in reality it remains a theory undergoing constant refinement (we can refer to the continual modification of "the" structure of the "tree of life" for a direct example). I have no expectation that the broad structure of evolutionary theory will be discarded at any point, my interest lies more on the "edge cases" where ambiguity, and therefore worthwhile analysis, exists. And I do think that often confirmation bias comes into play on the part of the "established" evolutionary models.
Which, to me, is counterproductive and really contrary to the nature of science. If in fact, there do exist any Irreducibly Complex biological structures, this does not preclude viability on either side of what generally ends up being a theism-atheism split on the issue. One could happily be an atheist even in the case of a clear IC structure being identified, with the conjecture that, say, an extraterrestrial race genetically engineered the modification--much as a theist can consider even in the absence of an IC structure that evolution is essentially a "biology factory" which was in itself designed by God.
So, from the standpoint of one's worldview, it isn't crucial either way. But from the standpoint of advancing science, it could be very interesting, and it would be a great loss to miss such a case due to the whole category of suggestions that a particular mutation might have been designed (intentionally caused for a particular advantageous outcome) being dismissed a priori for "political" reasons.
Now on your software analogy, I think there may be an element to the connection to the overall topic you may be missing. Let's note here that reusing those "features" and their implementation are squarely a case of design, by an intelligence, that intelligence being "us". If this kind of "code reuse" exists extensively in biology, that would weigh more strongly to the notion biology also had directly-designed elements, than the notion similar features came into place independently due to a random-mutation/natural-selection process, though, it is not impossible for that to have occurred. As you say, there is much we don't know about genetics. So long as it is indeterminate for a given case, though, I'd prefer to keep the question open and viewed with unbiased eyes.
Toward that question, it would probably be worth noting a pertinent difference between "current ID thinking" (e.g. Behe) and "mainstream" evolutionary theory. As I'm sure you are well aware, within the mainstream viewpoint, the majority of complex structures arise through successive series of mutations that are selected for due to some advantageous attribute--and indeed, no argument from me that many, many changes to biological structures do indeed happen this way. The particular distinction with this viewpoint that ID postulates (and ID tends to get "suppressed" so vociferously that most aren't ev
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Two words: Genetic Fallacy
Which, somewhat ironically given the thread, is in the domain of types of invalid logical inference, not genetics.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
The reason for this is evolution. We were all taught that evolution was BP changing, when fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Evolution is based on virus cutting DNA from one mammal, and then injecting it into another. So, what carries those virus around? The biggest carriers are mosquitoes. So, when Bill gates was talking originally about getting rid of all mosquitoes, he was talking about bringing evolution to a crawl, rather than the relatively fast pace that it moves at.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Some reptiles (lizards) are suspected of changing genders, but it has not been directly observed. Parthenogenesis has been observed in some species of (female) lizards. While all confirmed parthenogenesis with lizards result in females there are some rather bizarre relationships with some of the species that are known to do this. That is there seems to be multiple linkages between several closely related species. In each lineage the genetic diversity is small and almost all of the lines are females. There apparently are males born often enough to keep the genetic mixing going... what is not clear is where the males are coming from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis#Reptiles
"The most common form of reproduction in the world is asexual."
No, it is not. Almost all mammals (which is what humans are) reproduce sexually. Among the 'higher animals' that we were discussing, most reproduce sexually, for unknown reasons. It could be argued that sexual reproduction is the means by which a Creator created both us and the biblical animals upon which scripture refers to for for food, transportation, comfort, fear, etc. OTOH, all prokaryotes reproduce asexually but we were not talking about 'all life forms.'
"There are many many other examples of bad "design" in humans and other animals that just wouldn't be there if we really were intelligently designed."
By "intelligent design" you seem to be saying 'perfect design.' Perfect design would imply a perfect world without disease, deformity, and dysfunction which would be a world that Jesus did not seek during his time here. For example, Jesus healed many ill people but only as an illustrative example of the power of God and obviously not with the intent to create perfection and eliminate all human suffering. Why not? Moreover, those sick people that were healed ultimately aged, became ill, and died as they are obviously no longer with us today. Jesus pointed to hungry people lacking food and asked for others to share with them but he did not do a 'shazam' and create an abundance of food for all people for all time. Apparently, if this world is God's creation, then all are supposed to suffer and die in it and all have a choice to make...either with God or not. Of course, if you choose 'without' you will still suffer and die. But...where would the choice for us be if there was nothing but perfection, harmony, and abundance?