Evolution is a basic, biological process

It's late and I should be in bed, but I don't think they are anagrams (six vs. seven letters - there's no 't' in "appear").

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Confused ? You will be...

God dammit.I'm terrible with anagrams, so I wiki'd "anagrams" and used the first example that appeared. Here's what I saw:

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Anagrams is a anagram board game which is played with tiles from another word game, such as Scrabble or Upwords. At the beginning, all tiles are turned face-down. During the game, players take turns flipping tiles face up on the table.
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Creating Words

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When a player sees a word of four or more letters among the tiles face-up in the middle, this player says the word and puts the tiles for this word in front of him/her. A player cannot create a word which is already on the table.
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Stealing Words

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You can steal a word from another player by mixing all the tiles of one opponent's word with one or more in the middle, forming another word. Mere pluralization is never permitted, however, and sometimes players stipulate that the new word has to change the root of the old one. (example: APPEAR to PARAPET is fine; APPEAR or REAPPEAR is not.)

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You can modify your own words, subject to the same rule, to prevent others from stealing them first.

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You cannot steal a word by creating a word that is already on the table.

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I was quick and careless. Here are some better examples of anagrams:

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Desperation = A rope ends it.

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The Morse code = Here come dots.

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"To be or not to be: that is the question, whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." = "In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies: our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten."

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and

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Anagrams = Ars Magna (latin for "Great Art")

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On the other hand, the "appear = parapet" translation may suck as a straight-up anagram, but it's much more like the actual process of mutation, which includes not just changes in the order of base pairs, but the addition of new base pairs as well.

Yup. I intended to say something along those lines but forgot.

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Confused ? You will be...

Soplar, what do you think of Parasomnium's explanation of mind--message #97.

heh. I always thought it should be Leonardo Phibonacci ... seriously

The theme of the topics seems to be pretty much lost in the recent messages.Adminnemooseus

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While the deduction of the DNA shape by W&C was an important step, Mayr doesn’t mention (at least in this excerpt) what I believe is an even more important step, the determination of the genes sprinkled along the DNA molecule, since knowing the genome, one can then begin to examine the fabrication of proteins using the gene blueprint and in particular examine the effects of defects in various genes such as the BRCA and P53 which are involved in cancer.

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Mayr's essay is pretty short and focuses mainly on the different camps within evolutionary biology during the 20's and 30's. What I find interesting is even before DNA's properties were discovered the Evolutionary Synthesis seemed to predict that heredity worked with units of genetic material. Mendel's work alone strongly suggested that certain characteristics were independently inherited in a binary-like fashion. Luckily, Mendel did not bog down on multiple allele systems, environmentally cued responses, etc., otherwise his work may have been lost. But it is still quite striking that "genes" were predicted before they were found. Being only 30 years old and learning in an atmosphere where DNA was easily manipulated, it flabberghasts me that early biologists were able to discern the patterns of heredity, modes of speciation, and other evolutionary mechanisms without even understanding the basics of molecular heredity. Mayr even speaks to the percieved "robustness" of the Evolutionary Synthesis in the 1940's, and how it paled in comparison to discoveries made even 20 years later and yet was able to survive the onslaught of these new discoveries.In this on-line world of debate we often forget the history of the theory of evolution. That it has survived almost intact from it's inception in the 19th century is quite amazing. Even stalwarts such as Newton's Laws of Motion were shown to be critically flawed, but yet the essence of Darwin's ideas have survived these last 150 years. It is a testament to the accuracy of Darwin's observations and demonstrates what a luminary he truly was (and Wallace get's credit as well). Ernst Mayr occupied a privileged position, a chair from which he was able to watch the development of a functional and far reaching biological theory. I might be inserting romanticism where it doesn't belong (being a science geek), but for every young biologist the period between 1900 and 1960 represented the "Indiania Jones" period of biology.Looking back, it does make me wonder why creationists continue to plug along as if the last 150 years of biological research and discovery never happened. The caricatures of evolution that creationists depict are laughable when compared to the amount of time, research, hard work, and testing that the actual theory has gone through. Phrases such as "if men evolved from apes why are there still apes" reveal much about the creationist mind set. They have long since stopped doing science and have instead focused on propoganda. They know that winning the battle within scientific circles is never going to happen so they try and sway public opinion instead.If you don't mind me asking, how long did you work within biology? Maybe you could give us a little background in another thread? Perhaps a little on the research you did, or the classes you taught?

Dear LoudmouthI am finding this forum very intriguing. I wonder when some of the participants sleep — we are now at your response 127 and this has only been going for a couple weeksThere are a number of other responses I hope to find time for today, but I’d like to start with yours (perhaps because we seem to think a like)Re your comment Newton’ laws were actually not critically flawed so much as they only applied to what I would call the every day world Einstein showed that, as velocities approach the speed of light, Newtonian dynamics don’t apply; however, if one applies Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, where the ratio of v/c (obj vel divided by speed of light ) approaches zero, the Special Theory reduces to Newton’s. Similarly, quantum mechanics supplants Newton for the microscopic world of the atom, but in normal sizes reduces to Newton. Thus, while Darwin gets credit for being among the first to detect evolution and made the leap in his day that there is connected sequence in the origin of life from low forms to higher, he doesn’t get credit for discovering the mechanism driving evolution any more than Newton gets credit for the special theoryRegarding As I sort of implied above, this holds true for much of scienceRegarding I agree 110% and is a principal reason why I have joined this forum. I believe it is the obligation of scientists to speak out and blunt the creationist story Re my background — I’d be happy to supply a little. First, my PhD is in physics — the only formal biology course I’ve taken is a course in Botany in undergraduate school. I am somewhat like Mayr — insatiably curious and have studied many fields. When my father had a stroke and I was talking with his cardiologist, the cardiologist asked if I was a physician — I just happened to have three text books in front of me while we talked. I have done a great deal of investigation into matters biological, especially things relating to evolution. I probably have several hundred megabytes of material, extracted from various sources related to biology. One of current areas of interests in Systems Biology which, as Systems Engineer (what I used to get paid for) I find to be a bit of hodge podge (no disrespect intended) and in need of more of a systems engineering approachHope this helpsSoplar

How do your father and mother, your tall aunt the Ostrich, your tall uncle the Giraffe, your broad aunt the Hippopotomus and your hairy uncle the Baboon feel about your insatiable curiosity? And what does a Crocodile eat for dinner?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I don't know - I haven't asked them about it

Shucks, that's nothin' ... hot threads can get that many posts in a very few days.Welcome to EvC!

Hi TheLiteralistSorry it’s taken so long to get back to your very interesting questionsRegarding No one decided this issue. It is axiomatic that those species who don’t survive, don’t produce progeny, whereas those that do, do. It is interesting to note that next to the need for territory, the need for sex is the strongest need n the animal world. The reason for this is fairly straight forward. Sex is not needed by individuals to survive; hence, to ensure that the species survives, a strong need for sex is selected forThese two items are similar and are staple items in the creationist dogma. I am not aware of any other codes or machines that have not required intelligent, i.e., human designers. However, the human designers of codes and machines are quite visible and knowable. E.g., SFB Morse, was quite well known and famous. On the other hand, the designer of the genetic code, assuming there is one, is completely invisible an unknowable. Furthermore, if I grant the existence of a designer of the genetic code, what difference does it make? None. What is important re the genetic code is

1. Knowing what the code is
2. Being able to deal with mistakes in the code when they occur

It is the latter that is important. Cancer is caused be mistakes in the code. If we can figure out why these mistakes occur and then how to fix them, we will have cured cancer. I believe we are well on the way to doing this. Now, if you want me to believe that the mysterious designer is busy creating mistakes in people’s genetic codes, I can’t go there.Regarding the question of antibiotic restart bacteria I think the following extract from this web site
http://www.bioteach.ubc.ca/Biodiversity/AttackOfTheSuperbugsprovides a good explanation of the process Re, even if the bacteria mutates, it’s still a bacteria is of course true and is the reason for the evolution of sex as I pointed out sometime back. A bacterial strain can mutate for a long time and still be a bacteria because the mutations aren’t sufficient to generate the amount of change for higher level organism; whereas, the amount of change that can occur when an altered egg and/or an altered sperm unite is significantRegarding your highlighted question It depends upon how you define information. As I have mentioned above, to arrive at new life form, there must be a significant change in the genetic code incorporated into the offspring’s DNA. I suppose we could call this NEW information.And for your last and most interesting question I believe that the commonality of traits among diverse life forms is one of the reasons. The evolutionary process has conserved many genes beginning with at least the worm and the fly; hence, performing experiments using these rather simple organisms is far simpler than trying to perform experiments on humans (of course, most of the experiments performed on the simple organisms couldn’t be performed on humans). But I believe that the understanding of the evolutionary process itself is the basic requirement for understanding modern biology, in particular the fact that changes in DNA due to mutations is the driving force behind evolution and is the driving force behind cancer, aging and antibiotic resistant bacteria to name a few areas of modern biologic research.Soplar

Many thanks JonF. I'm new at this and find it very interesting and enjoyable.Soplar

I warn you Soplar, it is also extremely addictive. Since I was remiss in my duties earlier, let me extend my welcome to the madhouse that we call EvC.

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AdminAsgara Queen of the Universe

http://asgarasworld.bravepages.com http://perditionsgate.bravepages.com

Hi Queen of the UniverseThanks for the welcome and the warning -- I'm already struggling with the addictive nature of the forum. It's providing me a discussion oportunity I've looked for for a long timeSoplar