Thats rights everything that is not a microorganism is in another domain. But also microorganisms are prolific at exchanging genetic material horizontally. So as far as I have read and understand a lot of their ability can come from sharing genetic material and not creating new info through evolutionary processes. So how do we tell what is what.
Good question!
Wikipedia has a comprehensive article on the subject, but I will freely confess that it is beyond my level of expertise. What I can tell you, however, is that there appear to be fairly robust methods for examining horizontal gene transfer.
@sfs could probably tell you more about it than I ever could.
There are also limits to what can be evolved and there have been tests to show this.
Cite please? Neither of the articles you cited appear to have anything to do with that (although I can't actually read the first one, so...). Although it's perhaps pertinent to point out that the very first article indicates very strongly that yes, we
can detect HGT. The discovery of HGT in eukariotic macroorganisms was a really significant discovery that has led to a revision of the theory - but not its abandonment.
As with a fly. Well a fly is a fly is a fly. As far as I understand it all the different fly species are still flies and are still part of what makes up a fly.
And this ignores the
massive genetic diversity present within the category of "fly". Look, I'm sorry, but "It's still a fly" is a horribly facile argument. Like, would "It's still a primate" be a convincing argument to you when it comes to human evolution from an ape-like ancestor? I somehow doubt it. Given that there are far more phyla within Diptera than within Primates, I kind of wonder - on what basis could you then make the claim that there is more genetic diversity within "primates" than within "flies"?
This is where this argument falls flat. While it's easy to make simple groupings of things that are different - "It's just a dog/monkey/feline/fly/bacterium", these categories differ widely in terms of morpholotical and genetic variance. Do you have any information about the genetic variance within Diptera? I've looked for information on this but could not find any data on the genetic diversity within Diptheria (or even just fruit flies); anyone willing to help fill me in would be very welcome.
It may seem intuitive to say, "They're all just flies, they all have similar genetics", but the amount of genetic diversity between chimps is
far greater than within humans, and I don't think the average man on the street could tell an African chimp from an Asian chimp. Given that I've heard it described that Drosophilia alone has far greater genetic diversity than humans do, and that chimpanzees simply aren't that different, genetically, I think it's not all that unreasonable to assume that the order of Diptera has significantly more genetic variance than just the branch of the tree that holds us and our closest living relatives, the cimpanzees and orangutans. Which puts this whole "it's still a fly" argument in a bit of a tough spot, doesn't it?
They may be able to make many species but all the genetic info that is used to create the variations is still part of the fly genetics.
You could replace the word "fly" with the word "animal" or the word "life form" and the argument would be just as valid.
If you look at all the different flies or bat species or any species you will see that they are primarily the same shape and makeups. But when it comes to morphing into new body plans, systems, organs ect that is something again and needs new genetic info to make these things.
Yes, and as I have pointed out, we know how this new genetic info arises! There are a variety of mechanisms, most notably gene duplication. This whole argument is a complete waste of time. We know that new genetic information can and quite often does arise, we have a pretty good idea of
how it happens, and this idea that somehow it's impossible to make new genetic information is completely baseless and has
never been taken seriously because we've known it to be wrong pretty much since it was proposed (unless I'm missing something, and the idea predates the discovery institute, in which case we've merely known it to be wrong for 40-50 years).
Even the bacteria that is able to eat nylon is only able to because it was something to do with an existing gene that was also needed.
And that gene was modified to produce a completely novel function - basically, what you were demanding in your earlier argument with the flies. And we know this
didn't happen through gene duplication, but rather through mutation. Okay. So what? We have a way to modify the information present, and a way to copy existing information. This is
obviously capable of increasing the amount of information. It's really a no-brainer. If I take "ASDF", copy it, and mutate the results, nobody could reasonably claim that the new code, "AZDFBSDE" somehow does not have more information than the original.
So what? We clearly have a mechanism that allows for novel functions to be unearthed through modification in the genome, and we have another mechanism that allows for "information" to be copied, and we have examples of
the two working in concert. (I wonder how many of those examples I could find if I spent 10 minutes just searching for that? Although at this point one should suffice, seeing as you seem to be claiming that this is impossible.)
I would have thought if it is so obvious that there would be some more examples that could be cited.
I don't have anything better to do tonight, so what the heck, let's do this. The time right now is 1:17, starting the clock:
Aaaaand time. 1:27, and I found quite a mess of articles. Granted, not all of them directly describe a specific protein created by gene duplication, but I am also not a professional and my google-fu when it comes to scholarly documents not specifically related to medicine is... shall we say, a little shabby. I'm sure a trained biologist could do a heck of a lot better in 10 minutes than I could, and he might actually
understand all the papers he found.
What I also found was some interesting discussions on how gene duplication leads to the two identical genes being used in different ways.
This paper in particular is something I found
incredibly cool.
Its like transitional fossils. They cite a few examples but if the gradual evolution of one type of animal into another happens then we would have more transitional fossils than we would have fully formed ones.
It's called "punctuated equilibrium", and modern genetics fully supports the idea that we should see exceedingly few transitional forms in the fossil record, as most changes take place rather quickly (in geologic time; we're still talking tens of thousands of years) and in situations where the population is undergoing serious shrinkage. This was cutting-edge stuff some 40 years ago. Just sayin'.
Bacteria have a great ability for HGT. How do you tell what has been transferred horizontally or what has been transferred vertically.
Why in the world is it that when I think about you asking this question, my brain immediately follows it up with "You can't explain that"?
If you have a question about a field of study you don't know much about, do yourself a favor - don't ask it with the presumption that there
is no answer. This does you and everyone else a disservice.
I'm just saying that through all the experiments and tests they have never been able to produce anything but bacteria type organisms. If bacteria at one point in evolutionary history evolved into other things besides bacteria then you would expect to see something like that in the tests.
Again, you say "bacteria type organisms" as though that wasn't a
gigantic clade, or as though I had any idea what you mean. I don't. Do you want to see an experiment that goes from single-celled organisms to multicellularity?
This isn't new either. Granted, it's not bacteria, but we have, in an experiment, gone from single-celled to multicellular life. Or did you mean something else?
I thought it was evolutionists who played with the ,meaning of info. Where they use the ability for a creature to micro evolve and then use that same criteria to say that it also creates macro evolution events. So the meaning of info in micro evolution events is transferred to macro evolution which requires more complex info.
Step 1: Take a mechanism that increases information.
Step 2: Apply this mechanism 30,000,000,000,000 times.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!
Seriously, this is not a complex issue. I
heavily recommend this Thunderf00t video which shows it quite beautifully:
The info that is being transferred in micro events is pre existing. But Darwinian evolution says that the same mechanisms can create new abilities.
Because we not only have tons of examples of it happening but also a strong understanding of exactly how it works! This isn't some wild-eyed conjecture. The field of genetics has made
major strides in explaining the mechanisms behind evolution, to the point where luminaries which creationists love to take out of context on this point claim that the modern evolutionary synthesis coined in the 60s and 70s needs to be seriously revised to take all of this new information into account!
Mutations cannot create a set of wings
Seriously? You're going to try to use irreducible complexity here?
Seriously? That argument got its head ripped off in Dover a decade ago, and since then we've only gotten better and better at figuring out how things evolved! But you want to know how a wing could evolve from a dinosaur? Okay. Firstly, mutations in that dinosaur lead to the body getting lighter, eventually with hollow bones. This provides an advantage due to improved speed and mobility making it easier to run away or to hunt. Secondly, mutations in the dinosaur develop feathers, initially for warmth. And that's basically all you need. Your dinosaur arm is now essentially a dinosaur wing. This is completely baseless, of course, and I could be completely off base, but the idea that it's somehow
impossible is ludicrous. You think a wing is more complex than, say, an eye? And that one's easy.
If you look at wings they are not some mutated deformity that may have somehow molded itself into that shape. They are precise and detailed. Perfectly designed to be aerodynamic and work with a number of other perfectly designed systems all in place.
This is because virtually every animal with wings has had them for quite a long time, and has adapted them to their environment. Deformed wings gave way to slightly better wings, and to better wings still. Evolution led to birds who could fly better passing on more of their genetic information.
I'm actually starting to get annoyed here. I can deal with the more reasonable arguments, but irreducible complexity is not one of them.
Professor Ohno
Thus, one wonders if this mechanism alone sufficed at the very beginning of life when a large variety of polypeptide chains with Divergent functions had to be created almost simultaneously.
As an alternative to the customary process of the birth of unique Gene from a redundant copy of the preexisted gene of related function, I suggest that each of these unique genes for degradation of nylon by-products arose de novo
independently from an alternative reading frame of the preexisted, internally repetitious coding sequence.
This is what I am basically saying.
Wait,
what? No, it's well-understood at this point that the nylonase function came about through a shift in the reading frame. Are you trying to extrapolate that to
all of evolution?!
That there is a lot of doubt about Darwinian evolution being able to evolve these complex genetics and traits without any previous information for them already there.
But not from Ohno. No, seriously, pay attention, because this one's kind of important.
Ohno disagrees with you.
The person you are citing
clearly and obviously does not endorse the interpretation of his work that you are taking. He clearly thinks that evolution by natural selection from a common ancestor is the cause of the diversification of life, and he expresses this
constantly throughout his work.
This is as big of a red flag as you can get, short of the person in question popping out and telling you, "No, you're wrong", i.e:
(The funny thing is, in the age of the internet, life actually
is that simple half the time! I was able to ask professor Koonin his opinion just last night in order to refute someone else who was lying about his position!)
Here is another paper from Ohno who seems to be saying that
all creatures relied on a single set of genes at the beginning of time to duplicate everything. So all new genetics stem from pre existing genes already there.
Evolution is condemned to rely upon variations of the same theme: the one ancestral sequence for genes and spacers.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6820135
@Underlined: yeah, no kidding. Ohno's great work was in illuminating the mechanisms by which this diversification occurred. Although once again I think you didn't spend an awful lot of time reading what you're citing. I can't fault you for not reading the fulltext, but I
can fault you for not noticing that he actually points out the ancestral sequence found in all genomes!
The 20-base-long sequence (AGCTG) (AGCTG) (AGCTG) (GGGTG) can be considered as one of the few ultimate ancestors of all euchromatic DNAs. Long stretches of intergenic spacers are mostly represented by degenerate subfamilies of repeats derived from the above. Certain 30- 50-base-long units of such degenerate subfamilies apparently served as the primordial building block of the ultimate ancestor of each family of genes. For example, the primordial building block of the ancestor for antigen-binding sites (variable regions) of mammalian immunoglobulin heavy chains apparently was TTC-AGC-AGC-CTG-ACT-GGA-TAT GAC-CTG-GAG-TGG-ACT-TAC-TGC-GCA-AGA, which is the original reading frame specified in the 16-amino-acid-residues-long sequence Phe-Ser-Ser-Leu-Thr-Gly-Tyr-Asp-Leu-Glu-Trp-Thr-Tyr-Cys-Ala-Arg.
This is legitimate peer reviewed papers that also appear in other places such as NCBI. They are done by qualified experts who have just as much knowledge as anyone else. It seems when something shows evidence to the contrary you attack the source. Here are some other papers which are along similar lines and which appear in non religious sites. Not that this should disqualify them. I would hope that the info is being assessed on its content rather then where its from or who did it. That is a fundamental discrimination.
Estimating the prevalence of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15321723
Can you tell me, in your own words, what that Axe paper means? I can't. I have
no idea what he's talking about. I can't even tell you what the
summary PandasThumb posted means! And if these papers appear in other journals, please feel free to cite those journals. Biocomplexity is
not a real peer-reviewed journal, in the same way that the journal of 9-11 studies is
not a real peer-reviewed journal. If any of the previous papers actually were published in a real journal, feel free to link them. This paper
is published in a legitimate journal, but I cannot make heads nor tails of it nor do I have any idea what conclusions you want me to draw from it. Care to explain it to me?
Mainly to show that overall there may be a fitness cost to evolution. Mutations working together can have a negative affect as this evidence is showing. Like I said the evidence is showing that mutation are mainly a harmful or at best neutral thing.
It was found that the beneficial mutations allowing the bacteria to increase in fitness didn't have a constant effect. The effect of their interactions depended on the presence of other mutations, which turned out to be overwhelmingly negative.
And then you extrapolate this to
all mutations? Again,
what?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1931526/
http://bigthink.com/daylight-atheism/evolution-is-still-happening-beneficial-mutations-in-humans
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1544/1255
...And so on and so forth. Negative mutations are far more common, yes, but they get weeded out of the populace, while beneficial ones don't. The idea that there may be an overall fitness cost to evolution is so on-its-face ridiculous that I don't even know where to start. Why would something with an overall fitness cost be selected for? That makes
no sense!
So maybe I am misunderstanding what this info is saying. But it seems to me that there is a lot of doubt for Darwinian evolution.
You are indeed misunderstanding a
lot of what is being said. As I like to say, the best evidence for evolution for the layperson is that the vast,
vast majority of scientists active in biology agree that it is the only viable model for the diversification of life on this planet. Most of what you've been saying here has been really,
really wrong -
You hear that,
@Not_By_Chance ?
Really, really wrong.
- Where was I... Ah yes.
...Really, really wrong, and that's visible even to the barely-educated layperson. An actual scientist would probably have much better answers for your questions. It's not a scathing rebuke for evolution. It's just a reminder of how badly creationism has to mangle the science to seem viable.
...Although I will say that I did learn quite a bit in writing this post, so I can't say I've been wasting my time.