NASA finds proof that amino acid components in meteorites originate in space.
This is exciting news. NASA-funded researchers have evidence that some building blocks of DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for life, found in meteorites were likely created in space. The research gives support to the theory that a “kit” of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts assisted the origin of life. We may all be immigrants on Earth.
By Bill Steigerwald
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
NASA-funded researchers have evidence that some building blocks of DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for life, found in meteorites were likely created in space. The research gives support to the theory that a “kit” of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts assisted the origin of life.
“People have been discovering components of DNA in meteorites since the 1960’s, but researchers were unsure whether they were really created in space or if instead they came from contamination by terrestrial life,” said Dr. Michael Callahan of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “For the first time, we have three lines of evidence that together give us confidence these DNA building blocks actually were created in space.” Callahan is lead author of a paper on the discovery appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that the chemistry inside asteroids and comets is capable of making building blocks of essential biological molecules.
For example, previously, these scientists at the Goddard Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory have found amino acids in samples of comet Wild 2 from NASA’s Stardust mission, and in various carbon-rich meteorites. Amino acids are used to make proteins, the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes, the catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions.
In the new work, the Goddard team ground up samples of twelve carbon-rich meteorites, nine of which were recovered from Antarctica. They extracted each sample with a solution of formic acid and ran them through a liquid chromatograph, an instrument that separates a mixture of compounds. They further analyzed the samples with a mass spectrometer, which helps determine the chemical structure of compounds.
The team found adenine and guanine, which are components of DNA called nucleobases, as well as hypoxanthine and xanthine. DNA resembles a spiral ladder; adenine and guanine connect with two other nucleobases to form the rungs of the ladder. They are part of the code that tells the cellular machinery which proteins to make. Hypoxanthine and xanthine are not found in DNA, but are used in other biological processes.
Also, in two of the meteorites, the team discovered for the first time trace amounts of three molecules related to nucleobases: purine, 2,6-diaminopurine, and 6,8-diaminopurine; the latter two almost never used in biology. These compounds have the same core molecule as nucleobases but with a structure added or removed.
It’s these nucleobase-related molecules, called nucleobase analogs, which provide the first piece of evidence that the compounds in the meteorites came from space and not terrestrial contamination. “You would not expect to see these nucleobase analogs if contamination from terrestrial life was the source, because they’re not used in biology, aside from one report of 2,6-diaminopurine occurring in a virus (cyanophage S-2L),” said Callahan. “However, if asteroids are behaving like chemical ‘factories’ cranking out prebiotic material, you would expect them to produce many variants of nucleobases, not just the biological ones, due to the wide variety of ingredients and conditions in each asteroid.”
The second piece of evidence involved research to further rule out the possibility of terrestrial contamination as a source of these molecules. The team also analyzed an eight-kilogram (17.64-pound) sample of ice from Antarctica, where most of the meteorites in the study were found, with the same methods used on the meteorites. The amounts of the two nucleobases, plus hypoxanthine and xanthine, found in the ice were much lower — parts per trillion — than in the meteorites, where they were generally present at several parts per billion. More significantly, none of the nucleobase analogs were detected in the ice sample. One of the meteorites with nucleobase analog molecules fell in Australia, and the team also analyzed a soil sample collected near the fall site. As with the ice sample, the soil sample had none of the nucleobase analog molecules present in the meteorite.
Thirdly, the team found these nucleobases — both the biological and non-biological ones — were produced in a completely non-biological reaction. “In the lab, an identical suite of nucleobases and nucleobase analogs were generated in non-biological chemical reactions containing hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and water. This provides a plausible mechanism for their synthesis in the asteroid parent bodies, and supports the notion that they are extraterrestrial,” says Callahan.
“In fact, there seems to be a ‘goldilocks’ class of meteorite, the so-called CM2 meteorites, where conditions are just right to make more of these molecules,” adds Callahan.
The team includes Callahan and Drs. Jennifer C. Stern, Daniel P. Glavin, and Jason P. Dworkin of NASA Goddard’s Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory; Ms. Karen E. Smith and Dr. Christopher H. House of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa.; Dr. H. James Cleaves II of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC; and Dr. Josef Ruzicka of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Somerset, N.J. The research was funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Goddard Center for Astrobiology, the NASA Astrobiology: Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program, and the NASA Postdoctoral Program.
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Ron Cram says:
August 13, 2011 at 4:59 pm
…
Third, it is reasonable to believe in God because of Botany. Food producing plants and trees have one main purpose, to produce food. There are lots of plants and trees which do not produce food which survive and propagate the species. But consider food producing trees – apple, orange, apricot, plum and thousands more. Why? If trees evolved, wouldn’t the trees just be concerned with their own survival? It is rational to believe fruit bearing trees, vines, vegetables, etc are the design of the intelligent designer to provide food for his creatures. This tells us a little more about the Designer, that he cares for his creation.
…
—————
Hi Ron, I will try and answer your whole post tomorrow, but right now it is nearly 2am in the UK, and I need my beauty sleep. So I’ll just take the point above…
Surely, you cannot be serious! Fruit trees produce fruit so that animals will eat them, and then excrete the seeds some distance away with a nice little packet of fertiliser. Of couse, evolution does not really do things with a plan in mind, but the “purpose” of fruit is effectively what I wrote, i.e. to be eaten in order to disseminate seeds. Do you get it? Fruits contain seeds, fruits evolved to be attractive to animals, the animals eat the fruits, the animals distribute the seeds, the animals excrete the seeds, the seeds germinate, the seeds produce new plants. I learnt that at school. Didn’t you?
JohnB,
yes, all of the claims from both side have been dealt with interminably by both sides and outsides. In the end, there is no Scientific Evidence for evolution that you or anyone else can present, just the same kind of speculation that Darwin presented, but, based on more extremely advanced information compared to his knowledge base.
You didn’t include the issue with one parents genes controls the expression of the others. Could this be an issue that has NOT been dealt with. I believe genetics has offered a couple of others if you have a good link where that one is reasonably dealt with.
Anorak2,
while I am obviously not the most gifted communicator or writer, I believe my questions are rather straight forward. I would suggest you research the areas in detail and possibly learn something. Who knows, you may find I missed something or am simply wrong and can point that out for a WIN!!
Tucci78,
You have apparently run out of talking points. Your last response to me had nothing on the subject, only on your low opinion of those different or disagreeing with you.
That would seem to be the end of the discussion. You have lost through withdrawal.
Theo Goodwinn,
unfortunately the wager is biased to the beliefs of the person making the wager. It is often characterized as a “What have yo got to lose” argument. Well, for people who enjoy murdering, philandering, theft, lying (presumably to gain something), and don’t want to waste their time bowing to God…, there is a lifetime of enjoyment to lose with no guarantee that they will get anything after death. For many people there is only NOW whether it is this minute, hour, day, year…, they cannot, or will not, see the possibilities of later.
If the person is already in tune with the morality and way of life, and only needs to express a belief, then it would seem to be a slam dunk!!
John B,
Fruits contain seeds, fruits evolved to be attractive to animals, the animals eat the fruits, the animals distribute the seeds, the animals excrete the seeds, the seeds germinate, the seeds produce new plants. I learnt that at school. Didn’t you?
Yes, I did learn that in school and I rejected it. It is nonsensical to me. I simply cannot wrap my head around how fruits would “evolve to be attractive to animals.” How could the tree possibly know if a given mutation made the fruit more attractive or less attractive to animals?
My professors were never able to answer that question. If you have an answer, I would love to hear it.
At 6:29 PM on 13 August, demonstrating that he’s not only unsane but a liar, kuhnkat evades my post of 5:52 AM today (see link), weaseling like the morally and mentally incompetent jerk he’s always been:
Only in your own diseased little excuse for a mind, schmucklet. Just so your stench can be made even more obvious, let me recap a bit of what you’re running away from:
The day that an inflamed pucker like this kuhncat specimen can claim victory over individual human rights and the habit of reasonableness” will come only in this incontinent fraud’s masturbatory fantasies. To finish up with a quote from George H. Smith’s speech (1976, op cit, emphases in the original):
The “irrationalism” this kuhncat and his fellows in this delusion-driven political thuggery are trying to peddle under the guise of “intelligent design” is nothing more than “creationism in a cheap lab coat,” the degradation of scientific method and the blotting-out of lucid, honest reasoning applied to human understanding of the phenomenal universe.
As I’ve observed, it’s obvious that these self-crippled unsane critters feel threatened by the continued prevalence of “the habit of reasonableness” for reasons emotional and political. Possibly economic as well.
There’s much of that “habit of reasonableness” which makes of the prospective victims of the religious whackjobs’ various frauds much less vulnerable.
Clearly, that gets right under kuhncat‘s hide and makes him claw at himself ’til he bleeds.
Giving reason to ask whether Ron Cram is also un warmista, we’ve got him asking (swelp me, he’s really asking this about how “fruits evolved to be attractive to animals, courtesy of John B, and I’m quoting it verbatim):
Ooh, you had “professors,” Mr. Cram? Did you keep track of your tuition costs and other charges? That’ s because I think you’re making the case for claiming at least a partial refund if, in fact, those “professors” of yours were genuinely “never able to answer that question.”
Although, like a lot of other guys doing pre-med, I got my undergraduate degree in Biology, and I don’t recall any student asking “that question” because most of us had gotten the answer either by way of instruction in grade school, discussion with grown-ups as kids (I was raised in farm country), or in the course of self-directed reading.
I don’t know if I can put it in terms apprehensible to a cement-headed religious whackjob like you, Mr. Cram, but the reason why sessile plants which associated their seeds with materials that various motile life forms found not only nutritious but attractive in scent and flavor was that it proved to be of benefit to propagation, as had been observed by John B and which you had ignored.
The sessile plants didn’t have to “know” anything about the attractiveness of what it was attaching to their seeds, any more than they had to “know” it was necessary to surround the seeds’ germinal contents with a coat adequate to protect the stuff against gastric acid and the digestive environment of animals’ small intestines.
Those which didn’t achieve these and other beneficial mutations either didn’t propagate as well or didn’t propagate at all, and had fewer succeeding generations, being “out-competed” for space and sunlight and water and other resources by plants which did. No Great Sky Pixie required, thanks.
Since the invention of agriculture, plants and animals which have characteristics found to be useful or otherwise pleasing to human beings have been “un-naturally” selected by purposeful husbandry, and even more recently modified by direct manipulation of their genetic material to demonstrate traits that confer upon them an even greater propagational benefit because those characteristics give reasoning human beings cause sufficient to see that their numbers increase (if their days are not necessarily long in the land).
The dire wolf became extinct, but there are circa 23 billion specimens of Gallus gallus domesticus clucking about the planet, propagating out the kazoo.
Again, neither Great Sky Pixie nor Super-Intelligent Purple Space Squid nor Flying Spaghetti Monster necessary.
Ron,
I always got a kick out of the tortured explanations of how “things” evolved to improve the organisms chances of survival. First the chances of a mutation that is not negative is very small. Then there is the issue that each mutation is one tiny step toward, what?? Without intelligence driving it how many ATTEMPTS are necessary for each individual mutation required to make up an organ, limb, or even just a part way development that isn’t wildly against survival.
Then, you may have gotten part way there and the survivability deficit kills it off so has to be started from scratch yet again!! How many times would this false start happen?? We are told the earth is only 4 billion years old and the conditions weren’t appropriate for higher organisms for less than half of that!!!
Most who argue this path make attempts to suggest that the survival rate will somehow be good with a fin partially mutated to a foot or whatever. They never make the slightes bit of sense with all the organs. I believe the clotting of blood is one of the popular arguments. The current generations tout statistical based quantum mechanics as the top of the heap of physics, yet, expect us to believe in odds that are impossible being achieved over and over and over…. I almost FDL when they then claim that the eye or some other organ actually evolved a second or third time because it fits the environment. Dudes and Dudettes, it doesn’t matter whether it fit AFTER evolving, it only matters whether the organism was able to survive for millions of years with half developed THINGS hanging off them!!! The issue I never noticed was that some of these THINGS would have had to develop in parallel, that is, there would have been multiple things that were half baked at best hurting the survival of the critter for a full change from one to another.
If I believed in evolution I would understand that critters with partially evolved parts simply would not last long and would be unlikely to be found in the record. Of course, since the record is only for two long periods with fully developed animals in them and no signs of the animals between, fully evolved or not, it really shows that it simply didn’t happen.
The simplest issue is where on earth is there an animal that has any indication of some part of it evolving. There simply isn’t any. Every animal is complete and functional. Not with partial organs or functions. Did evolution stop because we are here so there is only natural selection left??
Richard Dawkins and other of the top dogs in Atheism and evolutionary theory understand that evolution is a failed theory for earth. It is why he allowed himself to be filmed saying he would have no issue with earth being designed as long as the aliens or whatever did the designing EVOLVED!!!! Why would he say that if there was any reasonable way to interpret the data here on earth as showing evolution?!?!?!?!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Tucci78,
“The process of scientific investigation has been, in fact, devised deliberately to minimize (ideally, to eliminate) the effects of such emotional loading as critters like kuhncat are demonstrating in this forum.”
Well Tucci78, I think I will leave it to everyone who has read your insults and outbursts as to who is having an emotional issue with the issue.
Bye!
kuhnkat says:
August 13, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Ron,
I always got a kick out of the tortured explanations of how “things” evolved to improve the organisms chances of survival. First the chances of a mutation that is not negative is very small. Then there is the issue that each mutation is one tiny step toward, what?? Without intelligence driving it how many ATTEMPTS are necessary for each individual mutation required to make up an organ, limb, or even just a part way development that isn’t wildly against survival.
Exactly. As difficult as it is to believe that mutations are likely to be positive, it is impossible to believe when the mutation relates to a fruit being attractive to animals. Are the trees hiring market researchers to do focus groups or what? I’m sorry but I’m just not buying it. I just do not have enough faith to be an atheist.
Fleeing for his worthless virtual life, at 9:12 Pm on 13 August, the cowardly kuhnkat evades address of a critique he obviously cannot confront much less rebut, pounding his pud against the keyboard of his Amiga to produce nothing more than:
Oh, were we conducting a scientific investigation of kuhncat‘s duplicity, weaseling, moral depravity, and incompetence? Inasmuch as the dispassionate consideration of kuhncat‘s flagrant disregard for honest disputation was getting no response from him but more of the same stuff one might inadvertently squeeze out of a rabbit’s entrails while gutting it for the pot, we might as well keep adding a little napalm to the dissection of kuhncat‘s hideous pathology.
Let’s again make explicit what this “intelligent design” garbage – “creationism in a cheap lab coat” – is aimed at, folks. The purpose of what kuhncat and the rest of these lying sons-of-indeterminate-parentage are pushing for is the aggressively coercive political imposition of a program specifically designed to destroy the teaching of scientific method in the government-run school systems in these United States.
Nothing else, really. All the dancing around they’re doing in this forum is what these stupid theocrats seem to think will sucker reasoning people into believing that people like kuhncat are educated. Or even sane. They’re neither.
Indoctrinated, certainly. But educated? Imagine kuhncat laughing maniacally as he frenziedly rubs his smegma’d prepuce over that Amiga down in his mother’s basement.
And definitely bereft of sanity.
Now what’s the proper emotion with which the honest, reasonable, honorable individual – the man or woman who respects and defends the unalienable individual human rights of his fellow innocent members of species H. sapiens – should respond to a lying sack of excrement like this kuhncat critter?
Speaking reasonably, I’d have to say that “hatred” is right up there at the top of the selection, with “contempt” a close second, and “revulsion” working its way into the top five. Anybody else care to chime in with their own response?
Tucci78,
Those which didn’t achieve these and other beneficial mutations either didn’t propagate as well or didn’t propagate at all, and had fewer succeeding generations, being “out-competed” for space and sunlight and water and other resources by plants which did. No Great Sky Pixie required, thanks.
Fruitless trees, plants and shrubs have survived and propagate just fine. Or perhaps you didn’t notice that part? It is just silly to think trees and plants have to produce food to propagate.
The questions I asked in college were along this line: How can the tree “know” when a fruit mutation is positive? According to the theory, the first apple was not as big, red and delicious as we see them today. So how in the process of natural selection can the tree “learn” that “Hey, that was a good move. The animals seemed to like it. We should do more of that! Let’s make it even bigger, redder and tastier next time!” I mean the tree would have to go through millions of mutations over billions of years of development. It just does not make any sense because we know most mutations are not positive.
Perhaps in an earlier age, this theory would not seem quite as nonsensical as it does today. We live in the age of post-neo-Darwinism. Dr. Koonin likes to call it the age of “Evolutionary biology in the light of genomics.” Koonin writes:
On the whole, the theoretical and empirical studies on the evolution of genomic complexity suggest that there is no trend for complexification in the history of life and that, when complexity does substantially increase, this occurs not as an adaptation but as a consequence of weak purifying selection, in itself, paradoxical as this might sound, a telltale sign of evolutionary failure. It appears that these findings are sufficient to put to rest the notion of evolutionary ‘progress’, a suggestion that was made previously on more general grounds.” See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2651812/pdf/gkp089.pdf
When presented with any speculation, you have to ask three questions: Is it possible? Is it plausible? Is it probable? When you ask these questions regarding fruit trees and other food sources developing by natural selection, the answers are “maybe,” “not really” and “absolutely not!”
Any reasonable person has to admit that if an Intelligent Designer was at work on this planet, designing trees and plants to grow food for other creatures is a sign of intelligence.
DNA “Life Building Block”?
Meteorites contain chemicals linked to life
Space rocks could have delivered DNA building blocks to Earth.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/333171/title/Meteorites_contain_chemicals_linked_to_life
No end to pious obsequious AAAS trade-union religion devotees…
It’s time for introversion:
RNAs are Earth’s primal organisms.
Each and ALL other Earth’s self-replicating bio formats-conformations are products of evolution of RNAs.
Earth’s life has always been and still is an RNA world!
Dov Henis
(comments from 22nd century)
http://universe-life.com/2011/06/10/update-comprehension-of-universelife-evolution/
At 10:47 PM on 13 August, Ron Cram blithers:
Tsk. You’re skipping over the first question, which is “What’s happening?”
Without valid, repeatable, and therefore verifiable observations of factual reality, your “speculation” is without value, and fatally susceptible to a disconnect from the standard of scientific inquiry – the evidence.
The leap to laying some kind of claim as to whether or not a conceptual model posited to explain a happening is “possible” or “plausible” or “probable” without information as to what is and can be observed is emphatically not science. Stupidity, certainly. Stupidity compounded by credulity – in your case – it’s to be confidently inferred.
Er, your real name wouldn’t happen to be “Andrew Wakefield,” would it?
Ron Cram says:
Fruitless trees, plants and shrubs have survived and propagate just fine. Or perhaps you didn’t notice that part? It is just silly to think trees and plants have to produce food to propagate.
There is not one true way of evolving. Features that help one creature in its environment, impede a different creature in a different environment. In the context of fruit: While it’s beneficial to have one’s seeds eaten by animals, they also cost the plant energy and nutrients to produce. For some plants the cost is worthwhile, for others it isn’t. Obvious example non-seeding plants. Mosses and fungi do not seed, therefore they don’t need to attract animals to spread their seed, therefore they don’t produce fruit.
The questions I asked in college were along this line: How can the tree “know” when a fruit mutation is positive? According to the theory, the first apple was not as big, red and delicious as we see them today. So how in the process of natural selection can the tree “learn” that
Tastier apples are more likely to be eaten, therefore they are more likely to seed.
It just does not make any sense because we know most mutations are not positive.
The trees with adverse mutations (e.g. no apples, degenerate apples, too small apples) don’t get a chance to procreate thus die out. Only the trees with beneficial mutations seed, so those are the ones that survive. It’s really simple.
On the whole, the theoretical and empirical studies on the evolution of genomic complexity suggest that there is no trend for complexification
Evolution is not about “more complexity”. It’s only towards better adaptations, but otherwhise undirected. Evolutionary adaptations can happen towards simpler forms, and often do. The notion that evolution must always strive for “higher”, “more complex”, “superior” beings is a popular misconception. So refuting it proves nothing.
When presented with any speculation, you have to ask three questions: Is it possible? Is it plausible? Is it probable? When you ask these questions regarding fruit trees and other food sources developing by natural selection, the answers are “maybe,” “not really” and “absolutely not!”
The talk.origins FAQ calls this notion the “argument from incredulity”: What you’re really saying here is “I cannot conceive how this or that feature evolved, therefore it can’t have.” All this proves is a lack of knowledge or logical rigour of the person making that point. This entire thread is riddled with arguments of the same nature, and they’re all fallacies.
Anorak2 , Tucci78, thsanks for saving me the time it would have taken to educate Ron and Kuhnkat as you have done. Though, I fear, you have been casting pearls before swine.
Kuhnkat does claim, however, that nobody answered his question “You didn’t include the issue with one parents genes controls the expression of the others. Could this be an issue that has NOT been dealt with. I believe genetics has offered a couple of others if you have a good link where that one is reasonably dealt with.”
The answer is trivially simple. A sexual animal always has the full set of genetic material, from both parents. A mutation that beneficially alters the expression of a gene can be selected for. It doesn’t matter where that gene comes from. The effect may be more pronounced if the mutation and the gene it affects are close together on the same chromosome (known as linkage), but it is not necessary. A grat example of this is that the peacock (male) introduces mutation not only to create that impressive tail, but also induce the peahen (female) to prefer a large tail. The appearance of “design” is strong, but it is only that, an appearance. The evidence for that is that we never see structures or organism that can only have been designed, there are always evolutionary pathways. Evolution is falsifiable, “rabbit fossils in the pre-cambrian” would do it, but don’t hold your breath.
A good introduction to this for you might be something like “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins. Or just use Google, there is plenty of information out there.
And Kuhnkat went on to say “I mean the tree would have to go through millions of mutations over billions of years of development.” Well, Kuhnkat, guess what, the Earth has been around for billions of years, not 6000. And flowering plants (the kind that produce fruit) have been around for over 100 million years. Here a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowering_plant
I’m going to try to embed a link to a video clip here. Apologies if it doesn’t work. If it does, it explains some aspects of eye evolution:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stb9pQc9Kq0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3%5D
John B says:
August 14, 2011 at 3:27 am
“The answer is trivially simple. A sexual animal always has the full set of genetic material, from both parents.”
Actually, that’s very wrong. First of all there are two kinds of DNA – nuclear and mitochondrial. All your mitochondrial DNA comes from your mother. Second, you have only half of each parent’s nuclear DNA and the makeup of that half isn’t the same from one fertilized egg to another as the half contributed is randomized during recombination.
This doesn’t speak to a whole raft of other mechanisms of inheritance grouped into a class called epigenetics. Things like methylization of DNA, billions of RNA molecules floating around in the cytoplasm, microtubule network structure, and so forth. All those things pretty much come from the mother as well.
.
@JohnB
“A mutation that beneficially alters the expression of a gene can be selected for.”
A fundamental mistake there again, John. But unlike your previous blunder this one is quite common among Dawkin’s worshippers. Selection happens on the entire genome at once, not on individual genes. The concept of the selfish gene is fundamentally flawed outside of bacteria and simpler single celled eukaryotes like the malaria parasite. The malaria parasite, for instance, has a small genome of some 27 million base pairs and an asexual reproductive phase. In the asexual phase some 95% of all cell divisions produce a perfect replica of the parent. Some 5% will have a single point (nucleotide) mutation and some very tiny fraction will more than one SPM which is why it’s duecedely difficult for it to acquire resistance to drugs where that resistance requires more than one SPM for resistance. In those cases single genes can be readily selected. In more complicated plants and animals where there is so much DNA that there’s seldom a perfect copy and where recombination scrambles things up to begin with (no clones) it’s the performance of the whole genome, the full monty, the whole animal, which undergoes selection not individual genes.
John B, Tucci78 and anoraks,
So far, you have all found fault with just one of the six evidences I put forward. But even the one you attacked is still standing. The argument put forward by anoraks was the best. Yes, it makes sense that mutations in one locale might be “positive” but in another locale “negative.” But adaptations are supposed to explain complexity and progress. Your view this is not true is counter to neo-Darwinism.
Did any of you bother to read the paper I liked to “Darwinian evolution in the light of genomics?” While the author discusses the problems genomics present for neo-Darwinian evolution of animals (and it certainly has shaken his worldview because he is thinking the entire Tree of Life idea should be replaced), he did not address genomics and plant evolution. If the same observations hold true in plants and trees, the problems arising to explain food production are much, much greater.
I apologize if I have not expressed my thoughts clearly on the issue, but I think if you actually read the paper I provided you it would help you understand what I am saying.
In the meantime, I am willing to hear your thoughts on the other five evidences I have put forward.
anorak2 says:
August 14, 2011 at 2:18 am
Ahem. I’m gonna have to call bullshit on that claim. Give me some examples of those “simpler forms” that often happen. I don’t know if you just made that up or are parroting someone who did. There are no examples of phyletic migration to much simpler forms. Eukaryotes don’t go backwards into prokaryotes. Multi-cellular forms don’t revert to single celled forms. Mammals don’t devolve into reptiles. Reptiles don’t devolve into fish. Evolution is composed mostly of parking lots where nothing happens except eventual extinction with a very small number of parking lots wihch have a one way exit which leads to a more complex parking lot.
dovhenis says:
August 14, 2011 at 12:49 am
“Earth’s life has always been and still is an RNA world!”
Interesting thought but inevitably flawed. RNA is not chemically stable enough for long term information storage. Think of RNA as the volatile memory in a computer and DNA as the non-volatile memory. Here’s a decent introduction to the chemical differences:
Unlike DNA, RNA strands are continually made, broken down, and reused. If you add up the chemical stability, the energy it takes to break or make DNA and RNA bonds, and the availability of enzymes to do this work, a compelling case for DNA over RNA can be made.
Dave Springer,
I always enjoy reading your thoughts. I would also like to know what you think of the paper by Koonin. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2651812/pdf/gkp089.pdf
Hey Tucci (I pronounce that Tushy for obvious reasons), why not just cut to chase and call anyhone who doesn’t agree with you a Nazi. Don’t drag it out.