What Darwin didn't know.

[Relyt]

Neg,

You're right, I didn't quote them verbatum. I don't have to. And of course I can paraphrase and interject my opinion. This is Cosmos not Negmos! So what if I googled and found those cites. You're not really suggesting that we use only the resources that you approve of? Or only the conclusions that you derive from reading articles? That would make us all sheeple. Sorry I don't blindly follow someone else's beliefs. So we know for future reference, why don't you provide us with your qualifications to judge the creditability of Doctors and Professors.

If you misunderstood the following the first time, it could have been my fault, so I will clarify it for you now and I will edit the post to more adequately reflect my intent.

I suggested that you study "the advances in DNA..." not just what I said, and do it for yourself, and don't listen to me, but draw your own conclusions. Then I went on to provide my opinion of what I read. So what! We all do it.

cheers

[Negative]

- If you don't quote someone verbatim, it's not a quote anymore. If you don't quote verbatum, I don't know how you're quoting...
- Yes, you are free to paraphrase and interject your opinion - as long as you don't pass it off as a quote.
- Yes, this is Cosmos, and not Negmos (although I should ask JUPM to change it 'cause that sounds darn cool and would certainly boost my ego).
- I'm not suggesting you use only the resources that I approve of, but it would be nice to know, for the benefit of the world, that the US Department of Justice is a tad bit more credible when it comes to crime stats than you are.
- I tried judging the "creditability" or Doctors and Professors once, only to find myself in a "conunundrum" because of a lack of "relialability"...
- I'll take your suggestion to heart, and study the advances in DNA. Didn't they just release a new single?

[moxnix]

I'm confused....what is all the hype about? Why can not evolution be designed by some higher power? Who is to say that some higher being(?) didn't design the mechinism in DNA so that everything could change as needed.

Does 'Intellegent Design' mean that DNA does not mutate? Does the mutation properties of DNA mean that Intellegent Design is pure hogwash?

I personally don't really care. I am interested in the advances in DNA research and curious to where they will go with it. I refuse to subscribe to either/any theory, because niether one (or any at present) have proven to have the complete answer. I won't go with any deductive style of thinking and really don't have enough information to be able to use inductive reasoning on any of it.

All of the hype that surronds this issue is just that, in my opinion. Everyone seems to have their own opinion/belief and keep trying to convince everyone else they are right.....without the complete knowledge needed to really justify their own position.

And that is my opinion..........

[Aspman]

DNA of all species is filled with errors and bloatware. Some of this bloat (areas outwith identified transcription sites) has been identified as regualators of esssential cell mechanisms. Some of it is historical, with old genes useful in another previous species buy now set aside as unecessary by natural selection.

Your assumtion that DNA evolves in gradual steps i.e by the change of individual nucleotide base pairs is wrong. Bacteria can take up large dna chunks simply from the growth medium. This process is called transcription. The DNA strand taken up by the bacteria can then be transcribed just like any other part of it's genome and the RNA produced an go on to generate proteins which may or may not change the bacteria (for good or ill).

You are also forgetting about retroviruses. Retroviruses contain only RNA which can insert a DNA strand into the DNA of the host perminantly. If the virus inserts DNA into germ line cells the change will continue with off spring of the infected host. Usually this is a negative effect, some retroviruses being known to cause cancer in the host (see the Human Papillomavirus and cervical cancer) but is is not impossible that the change may be benificial to the host.

Radiation can also cause large changes to an organisms genome with whole gene knockouts and chromosomal breakage.

Genomal mutations work hand in hand with natural selection to choose which mutations are beneficial to a species in a particular environmental niche.

[Relyt]

Originally posted here by Negative
[B]- If you don't quote someone verbatim, it's not a quote anymore. If you don't quote verbatum, I don't know how you're quoting...
- Yes, you are free to paraphrase and interject your opinion - as long as you don't pass it off as a quote.

I didn't quote them, I provided my interpretation of what they said. I provided them as a source so you could see where I derive my thought process from.

- Yes, this is Cosmos, and not Negmos (although I should ask JUPM to change it 'cause that sounds darn cool and would certainly boost my ego).

too biased?

- I'm not suggesting you use only the resources that I approve of, but it would be nice to know, for the benefit of the world, [B]that the US Department of Justice is a tad bit more credible when it comes to crime stats than you are.[B]

Wrong thread there Neg.

- I tried judging the "creditability" or Doctors and Professors once, only to find myself in a "conunundrum" because of a lack of "relialability"...

So who can we trust for information?

cheers

[Relyt]

Originally posted here by Aspman
DNA of all species is filled with errors and bloatware. ... a species in a particular environmental niche.

Thanks for the info and I'm interested in what you have to say, however after the previous combat it's probably a good idea to list your sources (ask Neg which ones to use...Just Kidding!!!) or your creditials. Otherwise it appears you are only providing conjecture. Regardless, the topic was the Language found within the DNA molecule not the carrier itself.

Bloatware sounds like the typical lazy American on Saturday watching the boob-tube getting that beer belly going.

cheers

[steve.milner]

I am an avid reader of New Scientist, have spent 3 years in Med School and can't for the life of me remeber my exact sources, but for the record I consider my opinion well grounded in the reading of solid research.

I can find no serious or credible alternative to Darwin's original theories, however recent developments may result in the thoery to be improved.

On a broad basis natural selection is at work, based on competitive advantage gained by those organisims who can exploit their environment better than others.

I can easily see how genes that confer advantage will proliferate - Taller giraffes get more food and have more taller babies, hence giraffes have evolved to become taller.

What I can not easy to see is how DNA codon/anticodon mutations can build a 'tallner' gene. DNA mutaion is verifiable and it is possible to to see how a sigle change can destory an gene, which supports the view that this mutaion has 'destroyed to original design'.

However, since most animals carry 2 copies of the same gene, mutaions can occur in one of them, which can build up to the point where the gene may work differently. Also, a single mutation may not destroy the gene, but simply alter the propertes of the protien it builds, which may or may not confirm a survival advantage.

I am not ruling out ID. I just beleive ID could operate on a differnt level. Was the intelligence used to create the way DNA/RNA works so that evolution could occur. This seems to be a better fit with the evidence that I have examined.

It is also worth considering that many physicists are amazed that our universe has managed to remain in existance. A tiny difference in the mass of a particle or a change to universal constant and our universe would cease to exist. Would that be where the intelligence in the design came... To build a universe so complex, yet not only able to sustain itself, but create all the wonders we see around us, as well as the myriad of complexity in life, that would require intelligent design.

I think the ID supporters are missing the bigger picture in the same way that those people who believed that the universe once revolved around Jerusalem were. I think it's just their own over-inflated sense of self worth that is the problem here.

On a final note, perhaps it's not the religious texts we should be looking at for messages from god, but in the structure of the universe itself...

God's message to creation in the cosmic backround radiation:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/...mg18825311.600

I doubt this will change the opinions of those who are unwilling to look beyond what they believe, but for those more enlightened souls out there, I hope this makes you think.

Steve

[Aspman]

Source is 4 years of pharmacology at uni (a mix of lots of subjects). Retroviral reverse transcription for instance is pretty basic stuff and easily googlable.

I'm more amenable to the ID crowd if they were making proposals of the sort Steve suggests. That God set the rules in the beginning but after that you're on your own.

[Tiger Shark]

Pretty sure that no sources are needed when we are only looking at pure logic.....

Something was said about DNA being the perfect computer program that if only one thing is changed the whole breaks [paraphrased].

Now how stupid is that? Why am I sat here at with red hair and blue eyes while Relyt sits there with dark hair and brown eyes? I thought that if there was a variation in the code then the organism dies.... That's a problem for your "scientist" you know.... Because it completely shoots down his theory of Adam and Eve because they would have had, at best two different characteristics. For either to have subsequently produced a blond baby, (either them or their offspring), one or both of them would have been required to have a recessive blonde gene... Which would be a problem since that would mean they weren't the first two people.....

Now let's look at another factor.... Birth defects... Down's Syndrome children live for decades as do dwarfs and midgets... Then there are holes in the heart and a whole plethora of other defects. By it's nature a defect is a change in that "perfect code" and, per your "scientists" argument should be stillborn. Again.... His argument is defeated by 2nd grade logic.

The main problem with the way people perceive the process of evolution is that they see it almost as a "concious" act when, in many ways, it is the science of failure. Since it is painfully obvious that the "perfect code" can be changed without disasterous consequences, as shown above, we can reasonably assume that alterations in the code can and do take place. When non-disasterous changes in the code take place the organism lives in it's altered state. Should that altered state place the organism at an advantage in it's environment, (the fittest), then that trait is passed on to it's offspring. Should that altered state place the organism at a disadvantage then the trait is not passed on to the offspring due to the death of the parent. Should the parent survive to pass on the trait it becomes a "war of attrition" to the point where either the environment changes which nullifies the disadvantage or even turns it into an advantage or, the line of altered code eventually dies out due to it's disadvantages.

Logically, in a complex organism, (and even an amoeba is a complex organism), non-disasterous changes in the code will usually be of detriment to the organism rather than of benefit - in any environment the probability that any single alteration out of the possible millions available would be beneficial is small. Thus, the road through evolution is littered with failure. Millions upon millions of code alterations failed and while looking at a fossil record can't show that since the fossil record is incomplete in this level of detail and because extracting DNA from fossils is next to impossible we will never be able to see the complete history of the DNA. Were we able to track the entire history of "the code" it would be littered with changes that lasted less than a few generations.

Nihil:

You mentioned something about changes that take place that are beneficial but that can revert when the environment changes..... I forget the proper term but I believe this was described by Darwin too in the industrial north of England - But it's been 30 years since I was taught this. The principle was noticed in a species of moth that lived there that was predominantly light in color. These moths used camoflage to protect themselves but as the north became more industrialized and the soot coated everything the lighter colored population began to decline in favor of a darker variation because the darker variation was better suited to hiding against the now darker background - the code had changed non-disasterously and the darker variation now thrived due to a change in the environment. However, I believe I read an article some years ago that took the same species and did a population study now that the region is cleaner than at the peak of "dirty industrialization". IIRC it showed that the lighter variation was making a comeback and that the population of the darker had declined to near the levels of the original study. This is nothing more than I have explained above except in this case the environment is "playing pendulum" in that it first suited variation A but a change in the environment began to suit the second variation. Assuredly, had industry remained so dirty the lighter variation would have died out and become another "failure" of the code. But, the environment altered again in a very short time - in evolutionary terms - allowing the original code to again be successful and putting the once successful variation back on the path to extinction.....

Ah... The wonders of Nature..... I love it, so perfect in it's imperfection.

[JewishIntent]

The principle was noticed in a species of moth that lived there that was predominantly light in color. These moths used camoflage to protect themselves but as the north became more industrialized and the soot coated everything the lighter colored population began to decline in favor of a darker variation because the darker variation was better suited to hiding against the now darker background

OMG as soon as i read that i got a flash back to sophmore year in highschool. I remember this. It was the theory of Natural Selection though not evolution. The only reason this is not evolution, is because both the light and dark moths were an equally occuring coloration of the moths, or equally dominant genes. It was the enviroment, predetors and overall forest color, that allowed one color to survive better than the other. Also think of the quickness of the change from the white trunked trees to the dark soot colored ones. If something were to change that fast on one of the gallapagos islands, such as an eztinction of the trees producing nuts for the nut crunching beaked birds, the birds wouldn't revert back to what they were, although I'm pretty sure they would begin to evolve that way, they would simply die due to the fast change.