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Author Topic:   Moving from suspicion to evidence for ID
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 16 of 44 (49298)
08-08-2003 12:02 AM
Reply to: Message 15 by MrHambre
08-07-2003 4:32 PM


badump bump... crash (of cymbals)!!!
But seriously folks...
------------------
holmes

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by MrHambre, posted 08-07-2003 4:32 PM MrHambre has not replied

  
Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6475 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 17 of 44 (49338)
08-08-2003 6:34 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by Silent H
08-07-2003 1:52 PM


1.
quote:
Hmmmmm. Well this isn't exactly the scenario I was talking about (no organism would appear to have suddenly become a rabbit). My guess is... note this is a guess... paleontologists would be able to determine whether land bridges allowed a new species to enter a region and take over.
In the case of rabbits a future paleontologist would hopefully be able to determine that human activity created a pseudo-landbridge for the rabbit.
I am not sure how any of this would be evidence or even imply intelligent design..but I may be misunderstanding your argument.
2.
quote:
This is would not be easy. But why should it be? We are talking about evidence that life is INTELLIGENTLY designed. Foresight beyond simply reacting to the immediate, is a sign of intelligence and may be the only one we can count on when looking at organisms that everyone (even IDers) acknowledge change from generation to generation.
I also don't see how this is support of design. There was a school of pre-adaptationists who thought that evolution worked in a pseudo-Lamarkian manner. But all experimental evidence shows the opposite.
HIV resistance in humans is conferred by a deletion of the CCR5 gene...this allele existed in the population prior to the presence of the HIV virus (presumably). Does this imply design or just random luck? How can you test it as designed based? Or are you referring to the appearance of a fully formed organ predating any potential environment that could select for it and then the descendents havign that organ in the appropriate environment?...good luck finding that

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Silent H, posted 08-07-2003 1:52 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by Silent H, posted 08-08-2003 12:25 PM Mammuthus has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 18 of 44 (49380)
08-08-2003 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by Mammuthus
08-08-2003 6:34 AM


mammuthus writes:
1. ...I am not sure how any of this would be evidence or even imply intelligent design..but I may be misunderstanding your argument.
It wouldn't, I think you were misunderstanding me. The first part was merely saying that animals (such as rabbits) overrunning a new environment, was not the kind of thing I was talking about. And I figure such events COULD be discovered and understood by paleontologists as the opening of new landbridges (even if man made) allowing an existing organism to move and overrun a new environment.
mammuthus writes:
2. ...Or are you referring to the appearance of a fully formed organ predating any potential environment that could select for it and then the descendents havign that organ in the appropriate environment?...good luck finding that.
YOU GOT IT! This is exactly what I am talking about.
Obviously such a thing has not been found, nor is such a thing likely to be found (given the vast precedent against it). But short of a manufacturer's label, or discovering a paleolithic genetic lab, or an intelligent designer stepping out to admit what it/they did, this is the only evidence I could see being given for true INTELLIGENT design.
Not only would it not make sense given evolutionary theory, it would show some sort of foresight behind changes in an organism, which means SOMETHING had to have intelligence.
Would you agree with this?
Hey Warren, Hey Barry, anything to say here?
------------------
holmes

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by Mammuthus, posted 08-08-2003 6:34 AM Mammuthus has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by Mammuthus, posted 08-11-2003 4:39 AM Silent H has not replied
 Message 20 by MrHambre, posted 08-11-2003 11:01 AM Silent H has replied
 Message 25 by Loudmouth, posted 08-11-2003 8:54 PM Silent H has replied

  
Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6475 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 19 of 44 (49872)
08-11-2003 4:39 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by Silent H
08-08-2003 12:25 PM


quote:
It wouldn't, I think you were misunderstanding me. The first part was merely saying that animals (such as rabbits) overrunning a new environment, was not the kind of thing I was talking about. And I figure such events COULD be discovered and understood by paleontologists as the opening of new landbridges (even if man made) allowing an existing organism to move and overrun a new environment.
Thanks for the clarification...this is a subject dear to me as I study the genetic effects on extinct animals of the consequences of the closing and opening of the Bering land bridge...
quote:
YOU GOT IT! This is exactly what I am talking about.
Obviously such a thing has not been found, nor is such a thing likely to be found (given the vast precedent against it). But short of a manufacturer's label, or discovering a paleolithic genetic lab, or an intelligent designer stepping out to admit what it/they did, this is the only evidence I could see being given for true INTELLIGENT design.
Not only would it not make sense given evolutionary theory, it would show some sort of foresight behind changes in an organism, which means SOMETHING had to have intelligence.
Would you agree with this?
Hey Warren, Hey Barry, anything to say here?
However, this steers us away from the topic of the thread which was to move beyond the concept of ID to evidence. What you are effectively stating is that ID evidence rests completely upon rejecting natural explanations in favor of saying "we have not found the evidence we want so we reject the evidence we have" and two " we will wait for the designer to out himself". This would be akin to rejecting the theory of gravity because I am still waiting for the Giant Pink Bunny Rabbit of Force to appear to me and show how he holds me down to the earth.
My sarcastic remarks aside ...though I try, I still fail to see how one could go about gathering evidence for intelligent design because I do not see what the testable or falsifiable hypothesis is to begin with....I guess Warren and co. can dig around looking for that frozen 40Kya genetics lab with the neanderal technicians sequencing the mammoth genome...but barring that kind of discovery they are at a dead end.

This message is a reply to:
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MrHambre
Member (Idle past 1393 days)
Posts: 1495
From: Framingham, MA, USA
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 20 of 44 (49933)
08-11-2003 11:01 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by Silent H
08-08-2003 12:25 PM


Holmes,
Apologies otra vez for sidetracking your discussion, and sorry to see that your request for testable hypotheses from the IDC camp has returned only preemptive strikes from ever-critical Mammuthus.
Most of the IDC folk hereabouts are long on evangelical fervor and short on scientific objectivity. However, I'm sure I'm not alone in having shared at one point in my life their suspicion that there is a plan or purpose behind the development of life on Earth. When Warren asks what would make someone at least suspect intelligent intervention, the answer is clear: for a start, the incredible complexity of life on Earth.
That intelligence is necessary to create such design was taken for granted for millennia. In the absence of any material mechanism capable of doing such design work, the supernatural had to suffice. The reason Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection still has the power to amaze and offend is that by proposing a material mechanism to explain the mind-boggling intricacy and diversity of life, Darwin disposed with the need for supernatural explanations.
A hundred and fifty years later, the power of the Darwinian mechanism has been confirmed repeatedly. Those who question its capability are invariably agenda-driven obscurantists whose arguments are either comical in their inadequacy or breathtaking in their irrelevance. Anti-Darwinism can present common-sense arguments based on unrecognizably crude caricatures of scientific methodology, as in the unintentionally hilarious tracts of Phillip Johnson. Alternatively, it can present detailed biochemical analyses of cellular structures and exhaustive statistical research (cf. the works of Behe and Dembski), with the explicit intent of setting boundaries for the Darwinian mechanism while proposing no new mechanism other than the old supernatural one.
What Anti-Darwinism has never been able to do is create a theoretical framework that can supplant the theory of evolution by natural selection. By insisting that methodological naturalism constitutes atheistic bias, intelligent design creationists are making it obvious that their notions have no evidential basis. Their feel-good science isn't going to provide a basis for investigating the biosphere. Its sole purpose is to provide an excuse for those unable or unwilling to take Nature on its own terms and realize that their initial suspicion---intelligence---is not a valid answer, only the means to one.
------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerto es el Rey.
[This message has been edited by MrHambre, 08-11-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by Silent H, posted 08-08-2003 12:25 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Mammuthus, posted 08-11-2003 11:29 AM MrHambre has replied
 Message 24 by Silent H, posted 08-11-2003 8:52 PM MrHambre has not replied

  
Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6475 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 21 of 44 (49940)
08-11-2003 11:29 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by MrHambre
08-11-2003 11:01 AM


Hi Mr. Hambre,
I am acutally not just trying to make pre-emptive strikes. I am really curious if someone can concieve of a type of evidence that would imply intelligent design over a natural explanation. The ultimate problem is their is no falsifiable much less testable hypothesis of design to begin with and without that, it is almost hopeless to look for evidence. Finding the remains of a billion year old laboratory containing the genomes of the ancestors of all life on earth in nicely labelled tubes would certainly give one pause...but this is no better than postulating that the tooth fairy was the last common ancestor of Liberace and Elvis..wardrobe similarities aside.
Of interest, the complexity of life seems to send a large number of people screaming in terror towards religious or ID based creation myths...but complexity is hardly confined to the biological world.
Unfortunately, the few ID proponents on the site have only hit and run here without engaging in debate i.e. Warren and co....that leaves us to play their parts in the tragic comedy of a play that ID represents.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by MrHambre, posted 08-11-2003 11:01 AM MrHambre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by MrHambre, posted 08-11-2003 12:06 PM Mammuthus has replied

  
MrHambre
Member (Idle past 1393 days)
Posts: 1495
From: Framingham, MA, USA
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 22 of 44 (49946)
08-11-2003 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Mammuthus
08-11-2003 11:29 AM


Mighty Mammuthus,
Before I end up impaled on a tusk, I should point out that I wasn't accusing you of anything other than skepticism of IDC's ability to formulate anything tangible out of the fragrant mist of its Magic Happy Love Science. I share this skepticism and agree with your insistence on several occasions that a science without hypotheses is no science at all.
The hypothesis of common ancestry is so well established that even St. Behe makes it clear he doesn't dispute it. Warren keeps claiming that IDC is not anti-evolution, just critical of the mechanism's non-teleology. We keep saying that teleology is easy to assume and impossible to detect, but that doesn't stop the IDC folks from calling for the dismantling of empirical evidential inquiry merely because it doesn't tell them what they want to hear.
------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerto es el Rey.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Mammuthus, posted 08-11-2003 11:29 AM Mammuthus has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Mammuthus, posted 08-11-2003 12:28 PM MrHambre has not replied

  
Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6475 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 23 of 44 (49949)
08-11-2003 12:28 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by MrHambre
08-11-2003 12:06 PM


Never fear an animal that has been extinct for thousands of years ..it is hard to move quickly or impale on a tusk that is often as fragile as driftwood.
I did not take what you said as a criticism. I only wanted to point out that I am really interested in this thread but don't see the IDists taking up their own cause. So I feel it is still interesting to bat around ideas between non-IDists regarding ID.
Behe's arguments are as flawed as any other IDists..but he is a bit more interesting in accepting the theory of evolution to a degree but unlike those who believe in god(s) but accept that evolution works by natural means, he posits intelligent intervention at each step...but it puts him far enough into the pseudo science camp to make his hypothesis irrelevant...though from what I gather, he is not a half bad biochemist.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by MrHambre, posted 08-11-2003 12:06 PM MrHambre has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by Silent H, posted 08-11-2003 9:36 PM Mammuthus has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 24 of 44 (50043)
08-11-2003 8:52 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by MrHambre
08-11-2003 11:01 AM


Another fine post mrH. It's too bad Congress and Judges don't seem to get to hear our fine statements, while rewriting education in this country.
------------------
holmes

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by MrHambre, posted 08-11-2003 11:01 AM MrHambre has not replied

  
Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 25 of 44 (50044)
08-11-2003 8:54 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Silent H
08-08-2003 12:25 PM


holmes:
1. Ok, adaptions appear suddenly in the fossil record. Define "suddenly." Is it in one generation as a whole, or in one individual that then spreads the allele? Or is it over a 100,000 year span which would appear "suddenly" in the fossil record.
2. Since most agree that physical/biochemical change is driven by genetic change, how could one differentiate between guided or intentional genetic changes from ones that are random and then selected for? For example, I work in microbiology and when we want to "change" a bacteria we insert a small sample of DNA inside the bacteria. This can then survive as a extra-chromosomal plasmid or integrate into the genome of the bacteria. However, genes are inserted as a whole functional gene, usually from a different species, instead of a single mutation to any gene already present. This is widely done to confer antibiotic resistance. Would we see something similar with ID or would we see small mutations in genes already present? How could this be distinguished from random mutations which are then selected for through natural means?
[This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 08-11-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by Silent H, posted 08-08-2003 12:25 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by Silent H, posted 08-11-2003 9:56 PM Loudmouth has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 26 of 44 (50049)
08-11-2003 9:36 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Mammuthus
08-11-2003 12:28 PM


mammuthus writes:
I am really interested in this thread but don't see the IDists taking up their own cause. So I feel it is still interesting to bat around ideas between non-IDists regarding ID.
Both you guys can lay into me for this one, but I do see value in trying to come up with a way of detecting "design" in an organism.
Not for the past, where so far the evidence of what processes were in play are pretty conclusive. But the future.
I gave as an example in some thread that artist which genetically modified a rabbit so that it would glow. What if the artist told no one (a real performance artist type) and released it into the wild? Suppose it started breeding with other rabbits and passed on the trait? Then a number of decade down the line someone finds a population of wild "glowing rabbits".
I think this kind of thing, whether deliberate or not, is likely to happen more often as genetic engineering becomes more common.
Just as scientists currently try to detect whether a bioweapon came from a lab and where, are there techniques which could be used to detect design and where/when bioengineered animals (including systems within those animals) came from?
Here's a motivating thought. What if IDists decided to help everyone else get with their program by engineering "made by God" type tags into DNA sequences of numerous small, previously unseen organisms? Introducing them so that scientists outside the ID camp start finding and then deciphering these odd DNA tags that have been popping up.
Suddenly the question of design would become very relevant.
This is why I started the ball rolling by basing an example of what we would be seeing when we do design organisms... sudden changes that, even if they end up being beneficial at a later date, have essentially nothing to do with the direct environment they are in.
To be honest I don't believe your criticism holds that ID inherently requires the rejection of evolution. It just happens that since there is a HUMONGOUS amount of evidence for evolution, and we know that evolutionary mechanisms are at work (even if ID happened at some other points) it is necessary to knock down possible evolutionary mechanisms first.
The example I gave in this thread was for the design of an organism in the past.
Let's say instead of what happened in reality, we had started by accumulating fossil evidence (when compared to geologic evidence) which consistently showed animals "pre-adapting" to new environments. It would have been either theories regarding ID, or that early life were like shoggoths, which we would be the popular theory. And then any fossil evidence which cropped up later exhibiting "postadaptation", would end up having to dismiss possible preadaptive reasons, before excepting that something adapted after entering an environment.
Man I hope that made sense. Essentially ID can't be criticized for what it must do given the circumstances, though IDists should recognize those "circumstances" mean they have to start by rowing up shit creek sans paddle.
Your criticism of whether it would be easy or definitive, especially using fossil evidence for past life, to detect ID using the criteria I defined is totally true.
There is also the criticism that even if a singular case of "pre-adaptation" might be "discovered". There would be no reason to suddenly doubt all other other life evolved. Neither would it necessarily tell us who helped it pre-adapt or why. The fact that it must have gone extinct (or it would be alive today) would suggest a very limited designer.
There is also the very valid criticism that all of this what if'ing gets us nowhere in actually developing any hypothesis about the origins of life. Namely because we don't have any evidence along the lines which we are trying to "what if" into existence.
Let me know if any of this made sense.
------------------
holmes

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Mammuthus, posted 08-11-2003 12:28 PM Mammuthus has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by Mammuthus, posted 08-12-2003 4:36 AM Silent H has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 27 of 44 (50054)
08-11-2003 9:56 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by Loudmouth
08-11-2003 8:54 PM


oh my...
loudmouth writes:
1. Ok, adaptions appear suddenly in the fossil record. Define "suddenly." Is it in one generation as a whole, or in one individual that then spreads the allele? Or is it over a 100,000 year span which would appear "suddenly" in the fossil record.
Well I guess that would be relative... a sliding scale... constructed by those that are familiar with whatever organism did the changing. In other words, much smaller than a realistic ball park figure for how many generations such an adaptation would require.
But the speed is not necessarily as important as the kind of change, namely an feature that could not have been selected for within the environment it is living.
loudmouth writes:
2. Since most agree that physical/biochemical change is driven by genetic change, how could one differentiate between guided or intentional genetic changes from ones that are random and then selected for?
Again, my prime criteria would be changes that simply cannot be selected for in their environment. As an explicit example, a species of desert lizard develops gills before its habitat is wiped out by a flood which does not recede (and evidence there had not been any flooding in there habitat before that time).
This would be very hard to determine for microorganisms, especially prokaryotes and simple eukaryotes.
loudmouth writes:
Would we see something similar with ID or would we see small mutations in genes already present?
Good question. As long as the resulting change is something that could not be selected for by the environment in which it lives, then mutations to current genes would seem to be indicative of some design work. A massive switching of genes? Wouldn't that be indicative that something weird happened?
I'm all ears on this one.
By the way, I want to make sure you understand I am not advocating ID as a theory. Nor am I trying to speak for ID theorists. I am simply trying to answer the question, what could I see in biological organisms which would suggest to me that a designer had a hand in it, and so what would count as definitive evidence along those lines.
------------------
holmes

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 Message 25 by Loudmouth, posted 08-11-2003 8:54 PM Loudmouth has not replied

  
Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6475 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 28 of 44 (50081)
08-12-2003 4:36 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by Silent H
08-11-2003 9:36 PM


quote:
I gave as an example in some thread that artist which genetically modified a rabbit so that it would glow. What if the artist told no one (a real performance artist type) and released it into the wild? Suppose it started breeding with other rabbits and passed on the trait? Then a number of decade down the line someone finds a population of wild "glowing rabbits".
I think this kind of thing, whether deliberate or not, is likely to happen more often as genetic engineering becomes more common.
I actually think it is already very common and not because of genetic engineering. Animal and plant breeds have been produced by artificial selection. It goes against survival of the fittest so if humanity took a long pause i.e. nasty society destroying war and then redeveloped thousands of years later..what do you think a paleontologist of the future studying evolution would make of a chihuahua?
However, the green flourescent protein would give away the origin of the rabbits trait. It is a gene from Anemonia sulcata and would look like a horizontal transfer....a similar example, the syncytin gene is the envelope protein of an endogenous retrovirus that entered the primate genome after the split of new and old world monkeys. It is critical for placental formation and presumably all other mammals including new world monkeys have an unrelated protein performing the identical function...design? Or just one of the thousands of transposition events that we see where the result is a beneficial mutation i.e. endogenous retrovirus LTRs causing the diversification of amylase gene expression etc. etc.
quote:
Just as scientists currently try to detect whether a bioweapon came from a lab and where, are there techniques which could be used to detect design and where/when bioengineered animals (including systems within those animals) came from?
DNA and protein sequences leave a fingerprint behind as to their origins as well as I will get to a little further below on the topic of horizontal transfer.
quote:
To be honest I don't believe your criticism holds that ID inherently requires the rejection of evolution. It just happens that since there is a HUMONGOUS amount of evidence for evolution, and we know that evolutionary mechanisms are at work (even if ID happened at some other points) it is necessary to knock down possible evolutionary mechanisms first.
I did not mean to imply that ID rejects evolution. However, it rejects the observed and tested mechanisms that generate the variation and lead to the observed diversity during evolution. Extreme ID claims that every step of the way i.e. where the next mutation occurs is guided by some untestable unfalsifiable mechanism...less extreme would postulate this for major speciation events.
In your post to LoudMouth:
quote:
Again, my prime criteria would be changes that simply cannot be selected for in their environment. As an explicit example, a species of desert lizard develops gills before its habitat is wiped out by a flood which does not recede (and evidence there had not been any flooding in there habitat before that time).
However, atavistic developmental irregularities do pop up now and then in the population...like the wereworld children in Mexico who are completely covered with hair do to a single gene mutation. If it is not deleterious, such an atavism could show up in a lizard species for no reason and become fixed.
quote:
Good question. As long as the resulting change is something that could not be selected for by the environment in which it lives, then mutations to current genes would seem to be indicative of some design work. A massive switching of genes? Wouldn't that be indicative that something weird happened?
I'm all ears on this one.
We see this all the time. It is called horizontal transfer. A huge portion of the Wolbachia genome is found in proper gene order, competent to express the genes, in some beetle species. It may actually be a species barrier in beetles and be a marker of incipient speciation. If you looked at those sequences phylogentically, they are not beetle, their last common ancestor was not beetle...but it is not ID. Similarly, 18% of the Aribadopsis genome is of cyanobacterial origin i.e. massive horizontal transfer. One sees horizontal transfer in all phyla. It is not indicative of design..it is merely indicative of the propensity of genetic material to get around...bacteria are even worse..they transfer genetic material this way all the time...while not supporting design..it certainly can screw up phylogenetic analysis
As your post started, I also see a value in discussing design and what the criteria would be (something IDists themselves refuse to do). However, until there is a testable hypothesis, I certainly would not devote any research money to the endeavor.
cheers,
M

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Silent H, posted 08-11-2003 9:36 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by Silent H, posted 08-12-2003 12:44 PM Mammuthus has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 29 of 44 (50146)
08-12-2003 12:44 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Mammuthus
08-12-2003 4:36 AM


Excellent post Mammuthus.
Even as I wrote the example of a lizard growing gills, I had the thought that it could be an "atavistic" trait showing up. And when we talk about the long interconnected history of life in an evolutionary setting that allows for a lot of potential atavism.
Horizontal transfers and retroviral "insertions" was the answer I was looking for. Although such events in bacteria are wellknown, I was not sure if this could translate to large scale changes in eukaryotic life (like slowly growing feathers and wings).
I am not a geneticist at all so I was unsure if at that level, it would be obvious where things are sliced or not... or what comes from what.
Well looks like my possible evidence for ID got shot down at the same level Behe was talking about. How ironic.
------------------
holmes

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Mammuthus, posted 08-12-2003 4:36 AM Mammuthus has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by Mammuthus, posted 08-12-2003 1:02 PM Silent H has not replied

  
Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6475 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 30 of 44 (50148)
08-12-2003 1:02 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Silent H
08-12-2003 12:44 PM


Hi holmes,
I would not say it got shot down. It is just that I could come up with natural explanations that are amenable to tests. It would admittedly be strange if preceding every major climatic shift in the record, groups of animals simultaneously shifted phenotypically to traits beneficial in the environment that had not yet occurred...but this is not what is seen..it is also not seen experimentally.
At some level what you are proposing would be observed, like with your green glowing rabbit example, if a future geneticists/paleontologist looked at domesticated animals and plants and wondered how the hell they survived since artificial selection is in effect and organisms that would certainly have very low fitness naturally reach a high frequency i.e. chihuahua versus wolf hunting prey in Alaska...
The extent of horizontal transfer and its effects on biology are not completely known...but there is evidence of such transfer in all groups...there have even been experiments peformed (mostly because of medical concerns) to force horizontal transfer to occur under lab conditions using cell culture...they were able to infect human cells with an expressed pig endogenous retrovirus (sorry I keep bringing them up but I work on them )
Patience C, Takeuchi Y, Weiss RA. Infection of human cells by an endogenous retrovirus of pigs. Nat Med. 1997 Mar;3(3):282-6.
cheers,
M

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Loudmouth, posted 08-12-2003 1:48 PM Mammuthus has replied

  
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