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Author Topic:   Key points of Evolution
Wumpini
Member (Idle past 5763 days)
Posts: 229
From: Ghana West Africa
Joined: 04-23-2008


Message 271 of 356 (466995)
05-18-2008 10:37 PM
Reply to: Message 268 by Dr Adequate
05-18-2008 8:13 PM


Winged Pigs?
Hello DA,
DA writes:
How can you prove that there are no winged pigs if you haven't looked everywhere?
Nonetheless, if you were to say: "It's a fact that there are no winged pigs", then I wouldn't cavil.
What do you have against winged pigs?
You probably would have been among those who would have thought like these scientists a while back:
quote:
The British scientists were at first convinced that the attributes must have been a hoax. George Shaw, who produced the first description of the animal in the Naturalist's Miscellany in 1799 stated that it was impossible not to entertain doubts as to its genuine nature, and Robert Knox believed it may have been produced by some Asian taxidermist. It was thought that somebody had sewn a duck's beak onto the body of a beaver-like animal. Shaw even took a pair of scissors to the dried skin to check for stitches.
You mention the critter later so I guess you would not have been fooled.
http://www.animaltrial.com/platypus.html
Really, what do winged pigs have to do with the existence of birds before 250 million years ago? You seem to be arguing that because scientists have not found something that contradicts their theory that it could not exist.
Well, let's have a look at that shall we?
Hypothesis: modern birds are the product of evolution.
Thank you for the example on the evolution of the bird. I think this will give me a better idea of how this way of thinking works.
Do scientists ever consider the possibility that a bird could come from a chemical soup like some other organisms supposedly did? You know through the process of abiogenesis? (Not a full grown bird, but a cell that develops into a bird.)
I have not studied what scientists believe about the orgin of life (abiogenesis), so I could be way off base on what I am suggesting.

"There is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be." - Charles Sanders Pierce

This message is a reply to:
 Message 268 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-18-2008 8:13 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 272 by Coragyps, posted 05-18-2008 11:06 PM Wumpini has replied
 Message 275 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-19-2008 2:01 PM Wumpini has not replied

Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 272 of 356 (467001)
05-18-2008 11:06 PM
Reply to: Message 271 by Wumpini
05-18-2008 10:37 PM


Re: Winged Pigs?
Do scientists ever consider the possibility that a bird could come from a chemical soup like some other organisms supposedly did? You know through the process of abiogenesis? (Not a full grown bird, but a cell that develops into a bird.)
That appears to be exactly what happened! It's just that those same first cells also have flatworms and nematodes and trilobites and humans as descendants, too. That's why the DNA of everything alive on Earth looks so very similar, and why all of life here uses the same twenty amino acids.
The only organisms that hopped out of that primordial soup have been dead and gone for about 4,000,000,000 years now: the very difficult task of figuring out what they were like can only be done by comparing the life forms we still can see - the fossils and the biochemical clues in living things.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 271 by Wumpini, posted 05-18-2008 10:37 PM Wumpini has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 273 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 1:27 PM Coragyps has not replied

Wumpini
Member (Idle past 5763 days)
Posts: 229
From: Ghana West Africa
Joined: 04-23-2008


Message 273 of 356 (467081)
05-19-2008 1:27 PM
Reply to: Message 272 by Coragyps
05-18-2008 11:06 PM


Lateral Gene Transfer
Wumpini writes:
Do scientists ever consider the possibility that a bird could come from a chemical soup like some other organisms supposedly did? You know through the process of abiogenesis? (Not a full grown bird, but a cell that develops into a bird.)
Coragyps writes:
That appears to be exactly what happened! It's just that those same first cells also have flatworms and nematodes and trilobites and humans as descendants, too. That's why the DNA of everything alive on Earth looks so very similar, and why all of life here uses the same twenty amino acids.
The only organisms that hopped out of that primordial soup have been dead and gone for about 4,000,000,000 years now: the very difficult task of figuring out what they were like can only be done by comparing the life forms we still can see - the fossils and the biochemical clues in living things.
That is not exactly what I had in mind. I have come to understand that the theory of evolution proposes that all living things came from a common ancestor that lived billions of years ago.
What I am asking is something different. It appears that a vivid imagination could be helpful in the area of science dealing with origins. We are talking about situations like the entire universe arising with no prior cause. That takes imagination. Then life is proposed to have developed from non-living matter. That takes imagination. Then complex changes in organisms seem to have taken place through natural means. That takes imagination. What I am asking does not appear to contradict present evolutionary theory. Is it possible that the bird came from some sort of chemical soup? It seems that with the original abiogenesis event (or events), scientists have a significant hurdle to overcome with the beginning of life. In this situation, that hurdle would have already been jumped.
If I understand correctly, then it is accepted scientifically that genes can transfer laterally between living matter. It appears that this is occurring today, and that it has been proposed as a scientific theory that instead of one universal ancestor, there may have been many as a result of this process. This would obviously change the tree of life that scientists generally use to explain the theory of evolution. It would not seem to change the theory of evolution, but it could add another mechanism that possibly would mean that we need to look at it in another fashion.
It appears to have been proven that an organism can survive and possibly prosper with the merger of genes from different sources. I think this may be called chimerism in humans. I think it has even been proposed that all of us are chimeras of one sort or another.
Therefore, I raised the question. Is it possible that in some sort of chemical soup through a combination of abiogenesis (if necessary), lateral gene transfer (between living cells), and whatever else scientists know about these things, for an organism such as a bird to come about? Is this an alternative theory to a bird arising through the normal reproductive processes of non-birds?

"There is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be." - Charles Sanders Pierce

This message is a reply to:
 Message 272 by Coragyps, posted 05-18-2008 11:06 PM Coragyps has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 274 by Perdition, posted 05-19-2008 1:51 PM Wumpini has not replied
 Message 276 by Blue Jay, posted 05-19-2008 2:18 PM Wumpini has replied
 Message 277 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-19-2008 2:34 PM Wumpini has replied

Perdition
Member (Idle past 3237 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 274 of 356 (467083)
05-19-2008 1:51 PM
Reply to: Message 273 by Wumpini
05-19-2008 1:27 PM


Re: Lateral Gene Transfer
A bird sort of arising spontaneously out of a chemical soup, like APhrodite out of the sea, would actually be an occurrance that would be evidence against evolution.
Abiogenesis, is in effect another type of evolution, going from obviously non-living matter, through a number of changes wherein the term living could be applied or not, depending on your definition, until we end up with something we would definitely call life. The odds of a fully functioning bird arising from a chemical soup is extremely unlikely. (Science wouldn't say impossible, but so improbable as to be indistinguishable.) First of all, it would require the extremely precise order of genetic material to spontaneously form that would code for a bird, it would need to be split into the correct number of chromosomes for a bird, it would need to find the right conditions in which to gestate without an egg...and it would have to have happened at least twice, or the Great Bird Experiment of nature's would have ended when that bird died.

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 Message 273 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 1:27 PM Wumpini has not replied

Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 275 of 356 (467085)
05-19-2008 2:01 PM
Reply to: Message 271 by Wumpini
05-18-2008 10:37 PM


Re: Winged Pigs?
You probably would have been among those who would have thought like these scientists a while back:
Why yes. You say that as though it was a bad thing, but a remarkable claim should be submitted to skeptical inquiry. This is how people found that the platypus was real; and why, conversely, mermaids and fire-breathing dragons and centaurs and so forth are not in zoology textbooks.
Really, what do winged pigs have to do with the existence of birds before 250 million years ago? You seem to be arguing that because scientists have not found something that contradicts their theory that it could not exist.
No, I'm saying that if we find nothing to contradict our theories, then those theories must be accepted as true pending the discovery of contrary evidence.
After all, what other evidence can there be for a proposition such as "there are no winged pigs" except that we have not yet found any evidence for winged pigs?
To put it another way:
Hypothesis: There are no winged pigs. Prediction: We won't see any winged pigs. Potential falsification: Seeing a winged pig. Actual observation: No winged pigs, lots of wingless pigs.
Now, of course this method is not perfect. We could have argued the same about "Hypothesis: there are no egg-laying mammals" until the discovery of the platypus. We base our knowledge of the world only on the evidence that we have, and this does not lead us to infallible truth. But there is no superior method.
Thank you for the example on the evolution of the bird.
Sure.
I think this will give me a better idea of how this way of thinking works.
Though, mind you, you will not usually see such arguments set out in such a formal hypothetico-deductive style as I used (though, if you're interested, I have written some articles where I do just that). However, any sound empirical argument always can be put in this form, and this is something you should bear in mind.
Do scientists ever consider the possibility that a bird could come from a chemical soup like some other organisms supposedly did? You know through the process of abiogenesis? (Not a full grown bird, but a cell that develops into a bird.)
A fertilized bird's egg sort of coalescing from chemicals? I think you'll find that pretty high on any scientist's list of stuff that didn't happen.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 271 by Wumpini, posted 05-18-2008 10:37 PM Wumpini has not replied

Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 276 of 356 (467087)
05-19-2008 2:18 PM
Reply to: Message 273 by Wumpini
05-19-2008 1:27 PM


Re: Lateral Gene Transfer
Hi, Wumpini!
Wumpini writes:
Is it possible that the bird came from some sort of chemical soup?
Are you asking if each lineage of animals could have evolved from a separate lineage of soup-born germs? That's what it sounds like. Are you suggesting that these "soup germs" (that's what I'll call them) could have been trading genes for a long time, and then, once enough genes accumulated, they began rapidly turning into multicellular animals? You're essentially positing a separate evolutionary history for each type of animal.
This is extremely unparsimonious (that means it requires a much more convoluted and pattern-less model to explain it than evolution does). Birds appear in the fossil record in accord with animals that are already very similar to them--dinosaurs, which are an offshoot of what we refer to as reptiles, which are, in turn, connected to amphibians, which are positively shown to have evolved from fish, which... Well, it goes on from there, so I'll stop.
Wumpini writes:
If I understand correctly, then it is accepted scientifically that genes can transfer laterally between living matter.
Lateral gene transfer is common among bacteria. I'm not entirely certain whether insertion of DNA by viruses into a host is considered the same phenomenon, but it's similar, at least. I haven't ever heard of multicellular animals exchanging DNA via lateral gene transfer, but, I can say with some confidence that it would be a very ineffective type of evolutionary mechanism: you could only target the DNA within a single cell at once, and the change would not likely be spread to other cells in the organism.
However, since you're positing "soup germs" as the vehicles, I couldn't say for certain. I don't think it's common enough a process to account for the great similarities between bird and dinosaur DNA, nor do I think a "soup germ" that holds all the DNA that is common between birds and dinosaurs would remain as a germ long enough to continue to use lateral gene transfer as an effective method of "evolution."
Wumpini writes:
It appears to have been proven that an organism can survive and possibly prosper with the merger of genes from different sources. I think this may be called chimerism in humans. I think it has even been proposed that all of us are chimeras of one sort or another.
Well, the term "chimera" isn't used for genetic-level mixing: it's used for cellular-level mixing. Basically, two groups of genetically-distinct cells grow in connection with each other, and blend into what appears to be a single organism, without ever exchanging DNA.
Wumpini writes:
Is this an alternative theory to a bird arising through the normal reproductive processes of non-birds?
I think this shows a bit of confusion on your part. Birds arose through the normal reproductive processes of birds. It's very hard to pinpoint a magical line between a parent population (dinosaurs/archosaurs) and the new population (birds) that has evolved from it, so saying that the first bird hatched from an egg laid by a dinosaur is a bit of a stretch. In fact, there really isn't a line to pinpoint, at all. Birds did not cease to be dinosaurs in order to become birds: they were born from the same clade they belong to today (i.e. they're still dinosaurs), and anything that evolves from birds in the future will still be a bird, regardless of how it changes and regardless of what future scientists decide to call it.
My baby looks a little bit like me, and a little bit like his mother. However, he is neither me, nor my wife: he has changed. Changes happen in every generation, and, if those changes accrue over time, the results will look noticeably different from the starting point. But, my baby is still a human, even though he's not really like any human alive today, and all of his offspring to the billionth generation will still be human, regardless of how different they will undoubtedly look from their ancestors that far in the future. Consider that only several million generations ago, our ancestors were fish. That makes us fish, even though we don't look like fish anymore.
Once population A starts down a different evolutionary pathway from population B, there's no turning back (barring interbreeding). Thus are born two clades: birds and Tyrannosaurus, which are not as different from one another was we once thought.
Dinosaurs beget dinosaurs, birds beget birds, etc. That's one of the key points of evolution.
Edited by Bluejay, : Airheaded word usage

I'm Thylacosmilus.
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 273 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 1:27 PM Wumpini has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 278 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 3:01 PM Blue Jay has replied

Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 277 of 356 (467088)
05-19-2008 2:34 PM
Reply to: Message 273 by Wumpini
05-19-2008 1:27 PM


Re: Lateral Gene Transfer
What you're proposing contradicts the fossil record and molecular phylogeny.
As for the lateral gene transfer, the genes have to be transfered from somewhere, don't they? You'd need something else to have the genes for being a bird first, in which case it's a bird, or you'd need one organism with half the genes for being a bird, and another to have the other half of the requisite genes, and these genes would need to come about by previously independent evolution, and just happen to fit together, and ...
No, I'm not seeing this.
If I understand correctly, then it is accepted scientifically that genes can transfer laterally between living matter. It appears that this is occurring today, and that it has been proposed as a scientific theory that instead of one universal ancestor, there may have been many as a result of this process. This would obviously change the tree of life that scientists generally use to explain the theory of evolution.
Wrong way round. They use the theory of evolution to explain the tree of life.
It would not seem to change the theory of evolution ...
The discovery of lateral gene transfer did change the theory of evolution. The theory consists of the law of natural selection, plus everything we know about the mechanisms of genetics: this includes sexual reproduction, recombination, that inheritance is particulate and not by blending, et cetera, amongst which we have to include the observation of the various kinds of lateral gene transfer.
It appears to have been proven that an organism can survive and possibly prosper with the merger of genes from different sources. I think this may be called chimerism in humans. I think it has even been proposed that all of us are chimeras of one sort or another.
The evidence is that we have indeed picked up genetic material from bacteria and viruses, maybe about 0.5% of our genome.
. In this situation, that hurdle would have already been jumped ... Is it possible that in some sort of chemical soup through a combination of abiogenesis (if necessary), lateral gene transfer (between living cells) ...
Not sure I'm following you. If it involved abiogenesis, that would be jumping the hurdle, and if it involved lateral gene transfer between living cells, that requires the hurdle to have already been jumped.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 273 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 1:27 PM Wumpini has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 280 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 3:31 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Wumpini
Member (Idle past 5763 days)
Posts: 229
From: Ghana West Africa
Joined: 04-23-2008


Message 278 of 356 (467092)
05-19-2008 3:01 PM
Reply to: Message 276 by Blue Jay
05-19-2008 2:18 PM


A Bit of Confusion
Bluejay writes:
You're essentially positing a separate evolutionary history for each type of animal.
Not really. When scientists suggest the concept of abiogenesis, I assume they are not trying to say there is a separate event for each single cell organism. I was only considering whether it is possible for a multi-cell organism to be formed in a similar manner. I guess I have a lot of concepts in my mind that I know very little about, and that is why I was asking. Like cloning, lateral gene transfer, chimerism, abiogenesis, primordial soup, etc.
Bluejay writes:
I think this shows a bit of confusion on your part. Birds arose through the normal reproductive processes of birds.
My confusion is that obvious! I think I am beginning to understand the concept of evolution. I did a lot of reading last night. I was looking at the processes, and it seemed very improbable to me that something like the journey from dinosaurs to birds could take place with these natural processes. There would be a lot of roadblocks along the way. That is why I brought up the question.
Bluejay writes:
... you could only target the DNA within a single cell at once, and the change would not likely be spread to other cells in the organism.
This could also be part of my confusion. I was thinking that multi-cell organisms started out as single cells with the instructions to produce different kinds of cells.

"There is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be." - Charles Sanders Pierce

This message is a reply to:
 Message 276 by Blue Jay, posted 05-19-2008 2:18 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 279 by Perdition, posted 05-19-2008 3:07 PM Wumpini has replied
 Message 283 by Blue Jay, posted 05-19-2008 4:01 PM Wumpini has replied

Perdition
Member (Idle past 3237 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 279 of 356 (467095)
05-19-2008 3:07 PM
Reply to: Message 278 by Wumpini
05-19-2008 3:01 PM


Re: A Bit of Confusion
The current understanding of how multi-cellular organisms arose starts with a single celled organism, in this you are right, but that single cell only has the genetic information to make more of the same cells. The next step is a colony of single celled organisms, each one living its own seperate life, but benefiting from the others around it. After a while, certain cells mutated, and this mutation had the effect of giving them some sort of ability to help the colony more, but potentially at the cost of that cell being able to live without the colony. Again, in a continuum of changes wherein it is tough to say when it stopped being a colony and started being a distinct organism, these cells kept changing and adapting, helping the group of cells survive better, thereby helping themselves survive better.
Edited by Perdition, : typos

This message is a reply to:
 Message 278 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 3:01 PM Wumpini has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 281 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 3:51 PM Perdition has replied

Wumpini
Member (Idle past 5763 days)
Posts: 229
From: Ghana West Africa
Joined: 04-23-2008


Message 280 of 356 (467097)
05-19-2008 3:31 PM
Reply to: Message 277 by Dr Adequate
05-19-2008 2:34 PM


Re: Lateral Gene Transfer
DA writes:
What you're proposing contradicts the fossil record
Are there not many instances in the fossil record where organisms seem to appear without significant fossil evidence of the transition? Maybe I am misinterpreting some (or a lot) of the things I am reading.
DA writes:
Not sure I'm following you. If it involved abiogenesis, that would be jumping the hurdle, and if it involved lateral gene transfer between living cells, that requires the hurdle to have already been jumped.
Actually, I was trying to imply that there were possibly certain processes that took place during abiogenesis whereby matter was organized by chance, and this random process could be applied to the organization of living matter. Therefore, the hurdle from non-living to living would have already been jumped.
DA writes:
You'd need something else to have the genes for being a bird first
This is probably my lack of scientific understanding also. There seems to be an endless supply. I was under the impression that these genes were coded information. A specific arrangement of DNA that tells the organism what it is and how to become that organism. So, when someone argues there is no difference between living matter and non-living matter (only arrangement), could you argue there is no difference between bird genes and other genes (only arrangement).

"There is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be." - Charles Sanders Pierce

This message is a reply to:
 Message 277 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-19-2008 2:34 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 284 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-19-2008 4:34 PM Wumpini has not replied

Wumpini
Member (Idle past 5763 days)
Posts: 229
From: Ghana West Africa
Joined: 04-23-2008


Message 281 of 356 (467102)
05-19-2008 3:51 PM
Reply to: Message 279 by Perdition
05-19-2008 3:07 PM


Re: A Bit of Confusion
Perdition writes:
The current understanding of how multi-cellular organisms arose starts with a single celled organism, in this you are right,...
I had not even been thinking about where and how multi-cell organisms originally arose. I was only thinking about the origin of my bird.
I wonder if this process is continuing today? I think this is where I need to look next.

"There is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be." - Charles Sanders Pierce

This message is a reply to:
 Message 279 by Perdition, posted 05-19-2008 3:07 PM Perdition has replied

Replies to this message:
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Perdition
Member (Idle past 3237 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 282 of 356 (467103)
05-19-2008 3:58 PM
Reply to: Message 281 by Wumpini
05-19-2008 3:51 PM


Re: A Bit of Confusion
I should have quoted what I was replying to...
This could also be part of my confusion. I was thinking that multi-cell organisms started out as single cells with the instructions to produce different kinds of cells.
Multi-cell organisms started as colonies of single cell organisms. If you mean during gestation, then you would be right, it starts with a single cell (the fertilized egg), but in order for that single cell to grow and become the final product, as it were, it needs very specific conditions of temperature, nutrients and, perhaps most of all, it needs to be protected from being eaten by other organisms. Even if the amino acids were to spontaneously group up in a combination that would create a bird, it would need to gestate, then grow to an age where it can fend for itself, all without the benefit of an egg or any parents.

This message is a reply to:
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Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 283 of 356 (467105)
05-19-2008 4:01 PM
Reply to: Message 278 by Wumpini
05-19-2008 3:01 PM


Re: A Bit of Confusion
Wumpini writes:
I guess I have a lot of concepts in my mind that I know very little about, and that is why I was asking.
This is good: you've taken one step more than most people would.
Wumpini writes:
I was only considering whether it is possible for a multi-cell organism to be formed in a similar manner.
So, perhaps I misunderstood you. You wanted a bird to start out as a single-celled organism, which could exchange DNA freely with other single-celled organisms, then develop into a multi-celled bird. Is this correct?
I was interpreting this as having each multi-celled organism arise independently from out of the soup of germs. To me, it sounded like intelligent design without a designer.
Please tell me where I'm not following you.
---
It would be most unlikely for a multi-celled animal with complex, well-interacting body systems to congeal out of "primordial ooze" or out of an ooze of single-celled things. The best explanation is one of continual tinkering over many, many successive generations to gradually build up to the complexity that we see today.
Wumpini writes:
I was thinking that multi-cell organisms started out as single cells with the instructions to produce different kinds of cells.
And, you're right: we all start as a single cell (an embryo) that results from the merging of two gamete cells (sperm and egg). But, this isn't evolution: it's ontogeny (development or growth).
Ontogeny is the occurrence of physiological and anatomical changes as an organism "grows up," which doesn't involve any genetic changes. Evolution is essentially the occurrence of genetic changes between generations. So, you cannot evolve, but your species can.
Likewise, ontogeny cannot make "primordial soup" into a complex system of interacting pieces (like a bird), because the DNA for forming those interacting pieces has to be in place before ontogeny can take over. And, the pieces are brought into place by evolution.
So, when you ask if a bird can be formed out of primordial ooze or the like, we say, "Yes. By evolution of many thousands of generations, but not by ontogeny within a single generation."

I'm Thylacosmilus.
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 278 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 3:01 PM Wumpini has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 285 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 4:57 PM Blue Jay has replied

Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 284 of 356 (467113)
05-19-2008 4:34 PM
Reply to: Message 280 by Wumpini
05-19-2008 3:31 PM


Re: Lateral Gene Transfer
Are there not many instances in the fossil record where organisms seem to appear without significant fossil evidence of the transition? Maybe I am misinterpreting some (or a lot) of the things I am reading.
There are certain transitions without fossil evidence (yet) and if you think about it, there must always be if you look on a small enough scale.
However, we have precursors and transitional forms to modern birds; whereas if they just climbed fully formed out of the primordial soup, these wouldn't exist and we'd have bird fossils from the earliest rocks onward.
This is probably my lack of scientific understanding also. There seems to be an endless supply. I was under the impression that these genes were coded information. A specific arrangement of DNA that tells the organism what it is and how to become that organism. So, when someone argues there is no difference between living matter and non-living matter (only arrangement), could you argue there is no difference between bird genes and other genes (only arrangement).
Only in the same sense that there is no difference between Oliver Twist and Moby Dick except the arangement of the letters; or no difference between two melodies in the same key except the arrangement of the notes.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 280 by Wumpini, posted 05-19-2008 3:31 PM Wumpini has not replied

Wumpini
Member (Idle past 5763 days)
Posts: 229
From: Ghana West Africa
Joined: 04-23-2008


Message 285 of 356 (467120)
05-19-2008 4:57 PM
Reply to: Message 283 by Blue Jay
05-19-2008 4:01 PM


I hope this clears things up
Bluejay writes:
So, perhaps I misunderstood you. You wanted a bird to start out as a single-celled organism, which could exchange DNA freely with other single-celled organisms, then develop into a multi-celled bird. Is this correct?
That is what I was thinking, I think. My limited understanding of abiogenesis is that the elements for life randomly came together. I guess I was wondering if a bird could come together in a similar fashion based upon the theories of science. Not through design, but randomly. It appears from the comments that I have received that the complexity would be too great for this to occur by chance.
I guess what I was trying to determine is where science draws the line between possible and miracle. From the comments I would think abiogenesis is possible, single-cell to multi-cellular is possible, dinosaur to bird is possible through reproduction, but complex life from single-cell is approaching impossible in the eyes of science.
I was interpreting this as having each multi-celled organism arise independently from out of the soup of germs. To me, it sounded like intelligent design without a designer.
Please tell me where I'm not following you.
I really do not know exactly what Intelligent Design people believe. If God wanted to create a bird, he would not have to use a chemical soup for that purpose. He would make the bird.
Someone said in another post that what matters is how honestly your religion deals with the facts of science. Well there is no conflict between my religion and the truth, because my religion is the truth. There is no religious organization who defines truth for me. So, there can be no conflict between science and my religion if science is truly attempting to understand the truth. I know what I believe to be true. I am only trying to find out what science believes to be true and why.

"There is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be." - Charles Sanders Pierce

This message is a reply to:
 Message 283 by Blue Jay, posted 05-19-2008 4:01 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 288 by Blue Jay, posted 05-19-2008 5:58 PM Wumpini has not replied
 Message 289 by Perdition, posted 05-19-2008 6:01 PM Wumpini has replied

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