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Dryad
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Joined: 7/19/2005
Msg: 301 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/12/2005 10:43:24 PM | Oh dear, I see Lamark’s theory just got reborn with a twist.
(There’s a great deal of evidence to disprove this one, search a bit).
But theories drive measurements - which can alter reality - even in the classical world - as in the quantum Zeno effect and its inverse. So where do observations get you? At least sometimes down the path you have invented.
From what I understand of quantum physics, the quantum zeno effect (the hypothesis radioactive particles never decaying because measurement technique returns them to initial state) is a good cautionary tale about the impacts of observation technique. However, to be a comparable analogy as an argument against observations that support evolution, specific criticisms are required. Can you point out how the observations of changes of allele frequency from generation to generation are influenced by the measuring technique?
Will future tests and evidence support evolution? We’ll see. All theories are tentative; Einstein’s theory overturned Newton’s after centuries, but Einstein’s theory was supported by testable hypotheses and evidence that couldn’t be explained using classical physics.
Currently, the collection of evidence overwhelming supports evolution, from observed speciation, microevolution, the fossil record, biogeography (species distribution, particularly endemic species), homologous embryology, morphological similarity, genetics (i.e. the development of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, genetic drift…).
Don’t you think it’s odd to use evidence (quantum zeno effect) collected by scientific methodology to question the same method? Isn’t it a bit of a logical collapse to argue that our observations deceive us, using examples gathered from our observations? Or are you arguing that the framework/conditions of the question and its testing needs expanding?
TI can help out evolution by signalling back in time what it needs to do to construct the future
Hmmm… if the Transactional Interpretation is valid and somehow signalling back to evolution, it’s fair to say almost all lineages of species are suicidal. ;) | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/13/2005 8:39:55 AM | Also with the TI and time concept, won't our "facts" be seen as always changing, as different observers with different points of view proform new experiments and directed their new desired results back through time? Our world would be in a constant flux as each observer adds his own take to the mix.
Personally I always thought the Cat in the box idea to be lame. Basically it says we know the cat will die, but we can not know when till we look. Yea, if I drop a hammer I know it hit the ground but I don't know where till I look. Sorry but, again this proves what? | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/13/2005 10:03:40 AM | Not even close to a proof, Trewq, just looking at possibilities!
I see Lamark’s theory just got reborn with a twist Was this directed at me, Dryad? Not sure what you mean. On that topic, however, what of Hall's observation that the rate of mutations increase for 'beneficial' mutations relative to 'neutral' mutations? (Genetics 126) Sounds almost Lamarkian!
The inverse quantum zeno effect suggests that a series of measurements can modify the system (or the measurements. For example, two polaroid lenses polarised at 90 degrees block light. Insert a third lens at some other polarization angle between them and the system transmits light. The intermediate 'measurement' seems to have modified the polarization. Not sure how this may modify your allelles, or even if it does. I'm merely pointing out the rather surprising notion developed from quantum physics that, as scientists, we may sometimes design experiments which reveal that which we wish to observe and struggling with the notion that in doing so, we change reality. Some (e.g. McFadden, Quantum Evolution) would argue that the inverse quantum zeno effect is an essential component of evolution.
Good scientists recognize the potential for bias in the design of their experiments, observations and interpretations. Most remain in the 'classical' world, largely unaware of the quantum world of which we are equally a part. So, yes, I argue for constant vigilance related to the framework, conditions and interpretation of observations. Can we explain evolution in classical terms, or do we also need to consider the quantum nature of our world?
One of the unsolved mysteries of evolution is that there are many fewer atoms in the universe than there are possible combinations of those elements in molecules big enough to exhibit 'life', leading to the conclusion that the development of life is highly improbable by 'classical' means alone. To my knowledge, no-one has created 'life' in their 'primordial soup' experiments, merely some organic building blocks. A possible explanation is that there may be a 'quantum natural selection' which moved certain 'beneficial' molecules from the quantum world to the classical world, thereby dramtically increasing the chance for life to evolve. Another opinion would be that all possibilities exist in the quantum world, so life was inevitable.
As for TI - perhaps life is altruistic rather than suicidal. Maybe the dinosaurs had to evolve and die out to accomplish the evolutionary path to humans ..... if humans are indeed evolutionary progress!  | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/13/2005 7:36:58 PM | You forgot to mention the pilot wave violates Newton's Third Law  I'm partial to the Multiworlds Interpretation myself. From what I've read it seems the least weird, though I used to like the Pilot Wave Theory. The MWI gives a nice resolution to the Grandfather Paradox. The paradox involves time travel. If you go back in time and kill your grandfather before you were born then you can't go back in time to kill him. In the MWI the resolution is simple (assuming that we could even travel back in time). In one universe he lives and in another he dies. You were born in the one that he lived but crossed over into the one where he died.
Information travelling back in time isn't as weird as you'd think. Maxwell's Equations, which describe electromagnetic phenomena, have solutions which can be interpreted as travelling back in time. There's also a fairly well known causality violating situation. Accelerated charges radiate energy. This radiation effects the motion of the charge. When this is calculated out there are situations where a stationary charge will spontaneously accelerate to infinite velocity (when relativistic effect are included it accelerates asymptotically to the speed of light). This situation appears to be unphysical and there's a mathematical trick that can be used to get rid of these solutions. However for it to work the particle's velocity now must depend on its acceleration in the future! | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/13/2005 8:09:45 PM |
Hmmm… if the Transactional Interpretation is valid and somehow signalling back to evolution, it’s fair to say almost all lineages of species are suicidal. ;)
To a first approximation, all species are extinct. :)
This entire thread is somewhat surreal to me, since Larry Moran (see pg. 1) is a friend. I like to see people quoting the talk.origins FAQs.
--R. | |
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Dryad
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Joined: 7/19/2005
Msg: 306 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/14/2005 7:34:51 AM | Ah, apologies Quietjohn the Lamark thought should have been tagged to one of Silv's posts.
(do you have a link to Hall's study? Initially, it sounds on the sketchy side to me.)
*laughing* Tsur, that very thought was in my mind when I wrote the suicidal thing :D
Sadly, I don't have much time for thread-play today... so have fun without me 
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And since we seem to be heading this way... I'll leave you with this quote
'"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing'
--Douglas Adams, 'The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy' | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/14/2005 9:25:58 AM | do you have a link to Hall's study? "Adaptive mutation" is the subject of much interest, partly because it appears 'Lamarkian', but also in understanding the development of drug and pesticide resistance. You get lots of hits if you use it as a search term in searches of the scientific literature (e.g. www.pubmed.com). Google has its versions too. Cairns was among the first to report it (Foster PL, Cairns J. Mechanisms of directed mutation. Genetics. 1992 Aug;131(4):783-9.)
Here is a brief summary from one of Hall's reviews:
Hall BG. Selection-induced mutations. Curr Opin Genet Dev. 1992 Dec;2(6):943-6.
Department of Biology, University of Rochester, New York.
Some spontaneous mutations are specifically 'adaptive' in two ways: in that they occur more often when they are useful than when they are irrelevant to the survival of the cell; and in that they occur as specific responses to selective pressures. These 'selection-induced mutations' occur both in bacteria and in the eukaryotic microorganism, yeast.
Not suggesting Lamark was right, just that, as usual, we don't quite seem to have the complete answer. | |
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Dryad
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Joined: 7/19/2005
Msg: 308 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/17/2005 6:37:32 PM | Very interesting articles QuietJohn, thank you kindly.
The later research about the mechanism, I found very interesting. Foster (1998) found evidence that the mutations weren’t directed (i.e., there was no reverse information flow). Hendrickson’s (2002) study into the mechanism found it is actually caused by standard natural selection pressures that act in three sequential steps, gene amplification, mutation, segregation. Which together, although individually non-directed, would appear directed due to the way Cairns set up his study. But Cairns study did open up a whole new series of questions where research is ongoing, and which may be very worthwhile.
Have you heard of the Red Queen hypothesis? It talks about co-evolution relationships (i.e. host-parasite, mimicry, etc) and has been suggested as a possible reason for the development of sexual reproduction. Since sex allows the genes to recombine (a bit like a pseudo-mutation) there’s some thought that sex might be an adaptation to keep up with the multiple generations (i.e. higher adaptive potential) of asexually reproducing parasites, bacteria, etc.
I’ve often wondered if the asexual reproducers, like bacteria, had similar strategies to give them an edge. Although, mutation is not the only one way for an organism to get a hold of new genes… I think one of the most interesting things I remember hearing in my microbiology class was how genes could be passed from one bacteria to another (horizontal gene transfer from one species to another). The case study was about how anti-bacterial resistance was entering different populations of bacteria.
Foster PL (1998). Adaptive mutation: has the unicorn landed? Genetics 148: 1453-9.
Hendrickson H, et al (2002). Amplification-mutagenesis: evidence that "directed" adaptive mutation and general hypermutability result from growth with a selected gene amplification. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 99: 2164-9.
One of the unsolved mysteries of evolution is that there are many fewer atoms in the universe than there are possible combinations of those elements in molecules big enough to exhibit 'life', leading to the conclusion that the development of life is highly improbable by 'classical' means alone.
Any outcome can be highly improbable, but I think a great deal of our amazement with the improbability comes because we are rather ‘attached’ to the outcome.
For instance, let’s say you like to eat corn flakes every morning. Now like most people, you don’t really count your corn flakes before eating them, so let’s say that you tend to eat between 200-400 cornflakes a day. One particular week you had the following series of cornflakes in your bowl; 251, 332, 399, 240, 354, 233, 374. If we assume a block distribution, the likelihood of this is about 1.3*10^16. Does this very improbable series of events surprise and amaze us? No, not really. We don’t have much of an attachment to that particular series of events. But because we do have an attachment to the series of events that may have lead to the development of life, we let the improbabilities boggle us.
Let’s take a more biological example:
Mutations are very rare events. The average spontaneous mutation frequency in DNA synthesis (during replication & failures of the repair mechanisms) for a single base pair is about 10^-7 to 10^-8. It’s estimated in E. coli, primary streptomycin resistance is acquired at a rate of 10^-9 when exposed to high concentrations of streptomycin. Although an extremely rare event, the exponential growth rate of bacteria means that it doesn't take long before resistance is developed in a population. (http://www.bioteach.ubc.ca/Biodiversity/AttackOfTheSuperbugs/)
we don't quite seem to have the complete answer
Agreed! That’s what makes the research so exciting. Who knows what we’ll find! | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/19/2005 5:53:34 AM | I think its also important to point out that even the highly improbable will probably happen given enougth time. It is highly imporable given the size of space, that any one asteroid would hit the earth. But we know that it not has happened but happens very ofen, because the improbability of the event is countered by the timescale it has in which to happen. Further to that, if you belive the univesre to be infinitly large, then in an infinitiy, all posibilities are not only proabable, but inevetable over time. If the universe is infiie then Everything has and will happen.
One of the othr things to consider is that if the universe had not happened exactly the way it did, we probably would not exist to wonder why it happened the way it did, so if you belive in an infinite progresion of universes, then this universe is the way t is because thats the only one that could sustain s in the state we are. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/22/2005 11:54:49 AM | Good points. I acknowledge that even the lowest of of probablities imply possibility, especially given enough time, but I constantly wonder if there's more to us than time and chance, even when directed by 'intelligent design' (whatever that may be). Dryad's numbers on mutation rates are an interesting example. How many possible mutations are there in those 10^-7, operating on about 10^3 genes in bacteria? Don't your numbers suggest probabilities between 0.1% and 0.01 for beneficial mutations? That suggests something more than chance playing a part. No, I'm not suggesting an all-powerful being intervened to help bacteria torment us, just pointing at an opportunity to learn more than we already know.
The same notions go for the origins of life, Raziel. Life seems to have popped up pretty fast after the earth formed - stromatolites date back 3.5 billion years with C-12 enriched sediments pushing possible carbon fixing organisms back to about 3.85 billion years ago. The stromatolites seem to demonstrate cell division, suggesting DNA and the complex messenger, protein and enzyme structure associated with it were evolved in a few hundred million years, yet we can't even demonstrate the spontaneous formation of ribose sugars in the lab. We can suppose it was chance - or even something surviving from a meteorite impact, but I'm sure you agree that science is never happy with mere supposition. Wouldn't it be fun to discover, understand, and even perhaps take advantage of new fundamental laws or mechanisms that make life as we know it much more inevitable than it would be in the processes we understand today?
If you want to be creationsist, shouldn't we strive to understand God?
P.S. Now I need to go check out those papers! | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/22/2005 2:06:34 PM | Lol, Trewq, you started a fun thread here. I Googled 'size of the universe' to check out your infinity theory but reading the answers gave me a headache. No-one seems to know the answer. The one that hurt the most agrees with many that the universe is about 14 billion years old, but that it is about 160 billion light years wide, suggesting that it has been expanding faster than the speed of light. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3753115.stm). Most end up with a statement that the finite / infinite argument is far from resolved and many agree that it is expanding faster than light, so we can't even hope to detect the limits of the universe with our present measurement technology. Ouch!!!!
The real issues that I have with infinity and possibilities are that you could use them to explain almost anything and that they consequently reduce to some kind of 'magic factor' that could just as well be left to God. As you have previously criticized, they don't prove or disprove anything. I'll concede that you could be right, but there's still a whole lot of fun to be had in the futile attempts to prove you wrong! | |
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Dryad
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Joined: 7/19/2005
Msg: 313 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/23/2005 10:20:21 PM | Oh yay! You’re back :) 
Hmm… I think I’m too sleepy to try to stretch my brain over the expanse of the universe tonight. I’ll have to do it tomorrow, even though it will become mind-numbingly larger during my sleep. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/24/2005 10:59:40 AM | Haha - went playing for a few days - and tried out my new camera. I LOVE these digital cameras!
Just noticed that an illegal % symbol found its way into my probabilities. What I meant was that your figures seem to suggest there is between a 1% and 10% incidence of a beneficial mutation which seems rather high for mere chance.
Still haven't gotten a round to digesting those other papers - maybe they will clarify things. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/25/2005 1:52:06 PM | | Ok, this is the answer to trewq36 who posted his question on 6/13/2005. I was an atheist then agnostic for a long time. So I know about Evolution and stuff like that. I did some research about Big Bang and Nebular Hypothesis. Nebular Hypothesis is widely accepted and considered to be scientific. Did you know that Nebular Hypothesis was first proposed by Sweedish mining engineer E. Swedenborg (1688-1772). He gazed into a crystal bowl and claimed that spirits told him that the universe was formed from the nebular (Nebular Hypothesis we call it now). That nebular ar the cloud of gas and dust came out of nowhere for no reason. 21 years later Emannuel Kant (1724-1804) was influenced by Swedenborg and popularized his theory. Can scientists proove to us Evolution? How can you proove it? Where did the Big Bang came from? Scientists know that life comes only from preexisting life which is known as the law of biogenesis. No one ever saw life spontaneously generating out of non living chemicals. You could look up www.answersingenesis.org for more information. They all are scientists with degrees there. Just type the question in the search window. See the problem of chirality and why scientist cannot make life in a test tube. You will find answers to all your scientific questions and will see the proof. | |
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Dryad
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Joined: 7/19/2005
Msg: 316 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/25/2005 8:39:42 PM | Goodness, I just read the expanding universe page… I’m hooked! I need to find out more about this.
illegal % symbol found its way into my probabilities. What I meant was that your figures seem to suggest there is between a 1% and 10% incidence of a beneficial mutation which seems rather high for mere chance.
hehe, got to watch those illegal % signs; good thing the punctuation police tend to stalk the profile review threads :)
Some possible mechanisms:
• streptomycin resistance can be produced by many mutations (1, 2), where the mutation causes a large enough difference in the shape of the protein to block the antibiotic effect. The single base-pair substitutions would likely be more frequent, but some may occur by double+ substitutions as well. Multiple beneficial single mutations would increase the likelihood, whereas if the beneficial mutation required 2+ substitutions the rate would decrease dramatically. Since the acquisition rate differs from the background rate, you’re right, there’s more than just a single mutation case going on.
• To add to the complications, not all segments of DNA/RNA are subject to the same background mutation rate (look up mechanisms of gene conservation, hypervariabiltiy, variation in mutation rate… I think are some of the terms). I thought this was interesting:
There is evidence of significant variation in the levels of divergence between presumably neutral (DNA) regions, pointing at an underlying variation in the rate of mutation across the genome. Apparently, such variation occurs on different scales, including sequence context effects (the influence of neighboring nucleotides on the rate of mutation at individual sites), variation within chromosomes (on the scales of kilobases as well as megabases), and between chromosomes (among autosomes as well as between autosomes and sex chromosomes) (3).
Nevertheless, I was thinking that the expected rate of resistance would be something like this:
Resistance Acquisition Rate = SUMOF(sub)# of beneficial mutations possibilities (end-sub) {Background Mutation ^# Mutations needed / total base-pairs}
Does that sound right? (edit: whoa, this place really doesn't like symbols)
Hmm… it would be better if we could get the actual mutation rates for the different types of mutations, since I know they can vary… but c’est la…, for this it might be a decent ball-park estimate… I'll see what studies I can find
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1. Johanna Björkman, Patrik Samuelsson, Dan I. Andersson & Diarmaid Hughes. 1999. Novel ribosomal mutations affecting translational accuracy, antibiotic resistance and virulence of Salmonella typhimurium. Molecular Microbiology 31(1): 53.
2. Burkhard Springer, Yishak G. Kidan, Therdsak Prammananan, Kerstin Ellrott, Erik C. Böttger, and Peter Sander. 2001. Mechanisms of Streptomycin Resistance: Selection of Mutations in the 16S rRNA Gene Conferring Resistance Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, 45(10):2877-2884.
3. Hans Ellegren, Nick GC Smith and Matthew T Webster. 2003. Mutation rate variation in the mammalian genome. Current Opinion in Genetics & Development 13(6): 562-568. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/25/2005 11:17:38 PM | Hmmm - getting somewhat away from the original notion and now I've read the details, it all sounds a little sketchy to me. Most of the experiments seem to have been done on genetically altered organisms and usually with copies of similar, normally un(der)expressed genes. A far cry from spontaneously coming up with a gene for a new enzyme. It still remains a fascinating issue - especially when you consider the rapid development of resistance to multiple antibiotics which again seems to have much higher incidences than anyone would have predicted.
The book that started me off on all of this was "Quantum Evolution" by Johnjoe McFadden. he raises a lot of questions about the implausibility of life's origins which makes very interesting reading. His solution is Quantum Mechanics operating at a molecular (DNA) level to induce mutations. Then you get into all sorts of strange notions about the direction of time, simultaneous existence of multiple solutions, even multiple worlds which help point to the best answer in terms of mutations. I'm not particularly convinced, mostly because Quantum Mechanics baffles me. He also mentions the life around the benthic geothermal vents which seems to be sustained by the bacterial breakdown of hydrogen sulphide rather than photosynthesis and thus represents a completely different existence. Those bacteria are now considered to be a separate group - Archaea which may offer a very different perspective on the evolution of life from a very different way of life. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/26/2005 3:56:09 AM | | Evolution, Evolution. There is a very good scientist M. Behe. He does not believe in God. He wrote a book called "Darwin's black box" (biochemical challenge to Evolution) not long ago. He is a biologist I think. I got this book from Salvation Army church (some guy gave it to me). I highly recommend this book. I heard many people talk about this book. Darwin in his book "Descent of man" uses phrase "we may suppose(this and that happened)" eight hundred times in 2 volumes. "Let us suppose" and "We may suppose" sound very scientific, doesn't it? | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/26/2005 6:47:17 AM | I say God created genetic evolution--change of allele frequency through time for a population.
Darwin only partly understood the mechanism. His theory has since been misapplied in dangerous ways. There is also other kinds of evolution, beyond genetic. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/26/2005 9:47:38 AM | Behe seems to accept evolution but argues for intelligent design in biochemical evolution. True, the evolution of biochemicals (especially those which replicate or participate in complex cascade reactions) is still far from understood and will remain a 'miracle' until someone figures out how it came about. Is that what was meant by "other kinds of evolution"? It's hard to comment on, or learn from, non-information.
http://www-biology.ucsd.edu/faculty/doolittle.html (links to the evolution of the blood clotting mechanism)
Melendez-Hevia E, Waddell TG, Cascante M. The puzzle of the Krebs citric acid cycle: assembling the pieces of chemically feasible reactions, and opportunism in the design of metabolic pathways during evolution. J Mol Evol. 1996 Sep;43(3):293-303.
There is perhaps a parallel in the notion of a flat earth. Columbus had problems with this notion in the 15th century. Most people 'believed' that the earth was flat. How could it be any other way? People would fall off a sphere. This, despite the knowledge since biblical times (Pythagoras in 600 BC - 2000 years before Columbus) that the earth was a sphere and that its circumference was measured with reasonable accuracy in later biblical times (Eratosthanes, 200 BC). It wasn't until Newton and his contemporaries in the 17th / 18th centuries that the notion of gravity explained how we could stick to the underside of a sphere. Presumably, the earlier explanation for those who could entertain the notion of a spherical world would have been divided between those who thought that it was a 'miracle' and those who believed that some rational 'scientific' explanation would be found.
Is there anything wrong with figuring out how God does his miracles? | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/26/2005 11:05:09 AM | No there is nothing wrong with figuring out how God does His miracles (we cannot fugure out everything though ) . Actually in the Bible in the book of Isaiah it is mentioned that the Earth is the sphere:"God is above the sphere of the Earth". The theory of Evolution requires long ages of struggle and violent death. Why would loving God allow this? God does not need Evolution. He is powerfull enough and smart enough to make everything right from the very first time.  | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/26/2005 11:55:17 AM | Making 'everything right'--assuming in your message that you mean everything exactly the same--the 'first time' would require, among other things, a non-changing context. The Earth is constantly changing. Conditions change over time. 'Everything right' in the context of a changing Earth environment is DIVERSITY of all sort (genetic, species, population... behavior... etc.) Evolution is not moving a population towards a 'better' or more 'perfect' state--but different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allele
And, if God had created everything exactly alike for a non-changing environment... HOW VERY BORING (for both God, and creation). And I think I can speak 'for God' about that ;) | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 9/26/2005 12:25:03 PM | | When God created everything it was much different than it is now. Yes everything changes but the change is not always for the better . Things go from order to disorder and with time fall apart according to second law of thermodynamics. The theory of Evolution requires things to get better and better but we see the opposite. What we have now is conservation and extinction also shown by extinction of animal species. The first Law of thermodynamics shows that Evolution is not happening: the total amount of matter and energy cannot be created and cannot be destroyed. The amount of useful energy is decreasing. With time there is going to be "heat death", not Evolution. You could check out www.answersingenesis.org (if you want to, no pressure). They all are scientists and many have been atheists. Evolution tells us that we are "accidents" coming from nowhere and going to nowhere with no meaning, no value and no purpouse in life. Do you agree with it? Why or why not? God gives us meaning, value and purpouse. That's why we are valuable. | |
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