Re: For Kim G. S. Øyhus


Glenn wrote:

> Sean, this may be of interest to you. Perhaps you have not seen it in
> the news.
>
> http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/mcirreversible.asp
>
> "UCSD Biologists Find New Evidence for One-Way Evolution"
>
> [...]
> "This is the strongest evidence yet to support irreversibility," said
> Joshua Kohn, an associate professor of biology at UCSD who headed the
> study. "If we had not used the genetic data coding for this
> reproductive mechanism and only inferred the pattern of evolution
> based on the traits of living species, we would have come to the
> opposite conclusion and with high statistical support - that the trait
> evolved more than once."
>
> [...]
>
> "Irreversible loss of complex traits, which result from the combined
> interaction of several genes, is an old and at times controversial
> scientific question. While the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay
> Gould popularized the hypothesis of irreversibility, known as Dollo's
> Law, studies that use current methods to reconstruct the evolution of
> complex traits often fail to support it. This is because it is often
> difficult to reconstruct characteristics of extinct ancestors with any
> certainty."
>
> "The study contradicts earlier studies of complex trait evolution,
> which have tended to favor multiple reappearances of complex traits
> after these organs were lost in ancestral species. The authors suggest
> that traditional methods for reconstructing the history of trait
> evolution may be inaccurate."

Hey Glenn. There are lots of examples of this sort of non-reversible
loss of function. This particular example, though interesting, is by
no means the only one. There are lots and lots of them. There are even
examples of a non-reversible loss of flagellar motility. Several types
of bacteria have almost all the genes for a flagellar motility system
and yet are immotile because of a loss of one or more key components.
For example, some Shigella strains have more missing genes than other
strains, but in certain strains, the only gene missing is the FliD
gene. This FliD gene codes for the vital filament cap protein. Without
the FliD cap protein at the tip of the flagellar filament, the
flagellin monomers (FliC) that form the filament fall away. Not only
that, but without FliD, the FliC parts simply do not assemble properly.

So, you see, such non-reversible functional losses are very common.
That is why those like Gould talked about them quite a bit. The
problem, you see, is that evolutionists have this magical notion that
time solves all problems. Given a few million years here and there,
just about anything is possible. No need to demonstrate how such a loss
of a complex function could evolve back because millions of years of
random mutation and natural selection solves such problems that cannot
be solved in real time - obviously. Very few actually stop to think
that perhaps millions or even billions or even trillions of years would
not even come close to solving such highly complex functional problems.


Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

.

Relevant Pages

  • =?iso-8859-1?q?Re:_For_Kim_G._S._=D8yhus?=
    ... >> reproductive mechanism and only inferred the pattern of evolution ... >> complex traits often fail to support it. ... > loss of function. ... > of bacteria have almost all the genes for a flagellar motility system ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall . . .
    ... interaction as the evolution of a truly novel system of function. ... a loss of a pre-existing system or interaction. ... systematic process for distributing genes between daughter cells. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall . . .
    ... interaction as the evolution of a truly novel system of function. ... a loss of a pre-existing system or interaction. ... "Much progress in understanding the evolution of new genes has been ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: COMPARATIVE VERIFICATION OF A GENETIC AND AN EPIGENETIC MODEL
    ... no one came up with a case of a change in a gene or a regulatory ... sequence that led to an evolutionary change in metazoan morphology. ... accelerated rates of evolution and diversification in metazoans. ... Stress response can induce changes in expression of genes especially ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Dawkins admits......Part 2
    ... Therefore natural selection cannot act upon it. ... You can't seem to grasp that the social environment affects fitness ... which means that evolution won't be a driving force. ... Dog breeding is done with artificial selection of existing genes. ...
    (talk.origins)