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Author | Topic: Evolution is a basic, biological process | |||||||||||||||||||||||
MangyTiger Member (Idle past 6383 days) Posts: 989 From: Leicester, UK Joined: |
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").
Confused ? You will be...
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
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"). God dammit. I'm terrible with anagrams, so I wiki'd "anagrams" and used the first example that appeared. Here's what I saw:
quote: I was quick and careless. Here are some better examples of anagrams:
quote: 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.
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MangyTiger Member (Idle past 6383 days) Posts: 989 From: Leicester, UK Joined: |
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. Confused ? You will be...
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Soplar, what do you think of Parasomnium's explanation of mind--message #97.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1434 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
heh. I always thought it should be Leonardo Phibonacci ... seriously
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Adminnemooseus Administrator Posts: 3976 Joined: |
The theme of the topics seems to be pretty much lost in the recent messages.
Adminnemooseus
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: 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?
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Soplar Inactive Member |
Dear Loudmouth
I 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 weeks There 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
Even stalwarts such as Newton's Laws of Motion were shown to be critically flawed, 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 theory Regarding
we often forget the history of the theory of evolution As I sort of implied above, this holds true for much of science Regarding
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 propaganda. They know that winning the battle within scientific circles is never going to happen so they try and sway public opinion instead. 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
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 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 approach Hope this helps Soplar
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jar Member (Idle past 423 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I am somewhat like Mayr — insatiably curious 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? Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Soplar Inactive Member |
I don't know - I haven't asked them about it
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JonF Member (Idle past 197 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
we are now at your response 127 and this has only been going for a couple weeks Shucks, that's nothin' ... hot threads can get that many posts in a very few days. Welcome to EvC!
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Soplar Inactive Member |
Hi TheLiteralist
Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to your very interesting questions Regarding
Who decided that anything needed to survive? 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 for These two items are similar
Given the genetic code, what other CODES do you consider not to have required intelligence to formulate? what other complex machines have you encountered that did not require intelligent effort to engineer and fabricate? 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
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
Do bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics due to copying errors? I don't think they do, but can you see, that even IF they do, it is still a bacteria...even the same general kind of bacteria
I think the following extract from this web sitehttp://www.bioteach.ubc.ca/Biodiversity/AttackOfTheSuperbugs provides a good explanation of the process
How do bacteria become resistant to antibiotics and what are the biochemical mechanisms that they use? Several mechanisms have been developed by bacteria in order to deal with antibiotics but all require either the modification of existing genetic material or the acquisition of new genetic material. Originally it was believed that all resistance was acquired through spontaneous mutation. Development of resistance through this method is called primary resistance. Errors in DNA synthesis during replication and occasional failures in the DNA repair systems result in a spontaneous mutation frequency for an individual base pair of about 10-7-10-8. This means that for every 107-108 bacteria, we would expect one single base pair to be changed. Mutation is a very rare event. However, the spontaneous mutation rate to acquire a mutation that causes resistance is often even lower since multiple mutations must take place before primary antibiotic resistance can be acquired. In E. coli, it has been estimated that primary streptomycin resistance is acquired at a rate of approximately 10-9 when exposed to high concentrations of streptomycin. While this is an extremely rare event, the very fast growth rate of bacteria means that it doesn't take long before resistance is developed in a population. Once the resistance genes are acquired, the genes can be transferred directly to all the bacteria's progeny. This is known as vertical gene transfer. The widespread development of multi-drug resistance in many species of bacteria simultaneously led scientists to believe that another mechanism beyond spontaneous mutation was responsible for the acquisition of antibiotic resistance. Lateral or horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a process whereby genetic material contained in small packets of DNA can be transferred between individual bacteria. There are three possible mechanisms of HGT. These are transduction, transformation or conjugation. Transduction occurs when bacteria-specific viruses or bacteriophages transfer DNA between two closely related bacteria. Transformation is a process where parts of DNA are taken up by the bacteria from the external environment. This DNA is normally present in the external environment due to the death of another bacterium. Conjugation occurs when there is direct cell-cell contact between two bacteria (which need not be closely related) and transfer of small pieces of DNA called plasmids takes place. This is thought to be the main mechanism of antibiotic resistant gene transfer. 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 significant Regarding your highlighted question
. Doesn't the development of new life forms require the addition of NEW information?
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
Do you believe that the commonality of many traits among the diverse life forms is the reason that modern biology is unintelligible to those without an understanding of the evolutionary process?
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
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Soplar Inactive Member |
Many thanks JonF. I'm new at this and find it very interesting and enjoyable.
Soplar
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AdminAsgara Administrator (Idle past 2332 days) Posts: 2073 From: The Universe Joined: |
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. AdminAsgara Queen of the Universe Comments on moderation procedures (or wish to respond to admin messages)? - Go to:
http://asgarasworld.bravepages.com http://perditionsgate.bravepages.com
General discussion of moderation procedures Thread Reopen Requests Considerations of topic promotions from the "Proposed New Topics" forum Introducing the new "Boot Camp" forum Other useful links: Forum Guidelines, Style Guides for EvC and Assistance w/ Forum Formatting
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Soplar Inactive Member |
Hi Queen of the Universe
Thanks 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 time Soplar
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