[lotuseclat79]

Gould's Non-overlapping Magisteria.

Review: Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution

Note: Stephen Jay Gould.

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Research may show how primate brain evolves.

Researchers have found an evolutionary mechanism that they believe shows how important changes in brain structure of primates can evolve - and it's all about timing.

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

When evolution is not so slow and gradual.

What's the secret to surviving during times of environmental change? Evolve…quickly.

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Body Part Loss in Fish Yields Surprise.

When two species of stickleback fish evolved and lost their pelvises and body armor, the changes were caused by different genes in each species, scientists have learned.

The researchers expected the same genes would control the same changes in both related fish.

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Why intelligent design fails.

Is intelligent design science, or not? Think carefully before you answer. The modern intelligent design (ID) movement is motivated by theological concerns and trades in on religious authority to meet its aims, but stripped of this background, can ID be relegated to the "junk science" bin? While the answer to this latter question is "Yes", in a new paper ("The science question in intelligent design") Sahotra Sarkar argues that proclaiming ID to be non-science without careful consideration does little good.
...
As alluded to earlier, the general lack of an "theory of ID" can be attributed to a lack of definitions. ID advocates go on and on about detecting "intelligence", but how are they defining "intelligence"? How does their concept of "intelligence" relate to the physical world? Sarkar takes an ID favorite, a bacterial flagellum, and asks why this particular part of the bacteria is considered the work of an intelligent being. Indeed, it is especially perplexing that ID advocates stress that it is an intricately designed feature but (according to them) the removal of any one part will cause it to cease functioning. This is more of an argument against evolution (i.e. this structure could not have evolved) than a positive example of design, especially since nothing about how the structure was designed or the supposed intelligence behind it is explained.

As Sarkar notes, ID truly relies on Christian theology, especially for definitions of words like "designer" and "intelligence." Perhaps these terms are left intentionally vague so that they can easily be understood by those receptive to ID as representing a particular deity. Indeed, since modern ID is (at present) primarily a cultural movement it may not be in the best interest of ID advocates to define their terms explicitly. The development of a new science is not the goal of ID advocates so much as the overthrow of evolutionary science is.

In confronting ID, then, we should take care before stating that it is not science. Doing so without full explanation of why ID fails invokes the rather thorny demarcation problem, which does have some potential to backfire. A better method may be to point out that ID cannot be treated as a science until its core terms, like "intelligence" and "design", are sufficiently defined. This criticism cuts more directly into the aims and behavior of ID advocates and avoids the relatively sticky philosophical ground of what is and what is not science. I hope Sarkar's proposal does not fall on deaf ears.

-- Tom

[jmosmith]

Of course, the court transcripts where they lost, pretty much close the door on the whole thing too,...

[CADude12]

Of course, one must question why there is a need to confront ID at all... because it is a pseudo-science, or because it is the "wrong kind" of theology? If you don't want to confront it as a pseudo-science, then you have to engage in theology, and philosophy... in other words, recognizing it's roots in Christian theology, you must confront it on those grounds, and they are very different than the grounds of science. The sticky ground is no longer what is science or not science, but what is legitimate philosophy. A whole different ball game.

[lotuseclat79]

Twelve Misunderstandings of Evolution.

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Evolution can occur in less than 10 years.

UC Riverside-led study shows wild Trinidadian guppies adapted in less than 30 generations to a new environment

-- Tom

[shibboleth]

Hi Stoner, I'm not dead. By the way, in keeping with your gravity quote at the bottom of your posts did you know that trees are responsible for nearly 100% of all forest fires? people like to blame lightening or hastily flung cigarettes but it's trees that are the real culprits.

Wayne

[CADude12]

Originally Posted by shibboleth

Hi Stoner, I'm not dead. By the way, in keeping with your gravity quote at the bottom of your posts did you know that trees are responsible for nearly 100% of all forest fires? people like to blame lightening or hastily flung cigarettes but it's trees that are the real culprits.

Wayne

Being from Santa Barbara, you are quite familiar with this phenomenon... my fiancee is from Santa Barbara.

[plschwartz]

This is the second time in a matter of weeks that a major break though in RNA/DNA construction from simple molecules.
The center of the intelligent design argument revolves around life being too complex to be made by chance. Now that (pseudo) appeal to Reason is gone leaving only faith. And that may not be enough to begin to correct the embarrassment of the teaching of ID as a reasonable alternative to Evolution.
For those of you with a little advanced Chemistry, it seems clear to me that differences in rate reaction in a chemical stew is the same as survival of the fittest

[
kmckeown@scripps.edu
858-784-8134
Scripps Research Institute
Scripps research team creates simple chemical system that mimics DNA
Findings offer possible clues about primordial world, and could eventually lead to exotic new materials

La Jolla, CA, June 11, 2009 –A team of Scripps Research scientists has created a new analog to DNA that assembles and disassembles itself without the need for enzymes. Because the new system comprises components that might reasonably be expected in a primordial world, the new chemical system could answer questions about how life could emerge.

The work, reported in the June 11, 2009 issue of Science Express, an advance, online publication of the journal Science, might also be a starting point on the way to exotic new materials that repair themselves or transform in response to their environment.

Scientists are both bemused and fascinated by the question of how life could have arisen on Earth. One of the most prominent theories is that, before the emergence of DNA, the earliest forms of life used RNA to transmit their genetic codes. The late Leslie Orgel, a co-author of the new paper, first suggested this idea, known as the "RNA World."

One of the theory's challenges is that RNA is still so complex that many researchers believer something still simpler must have preceded it. "I have been working for years to learn what replicators and genetic systems might have come before the advent of the RNA World," says team leader of the new research Professor Reza Ghadiri, a Scripps Research chemist.

One key focus for Ghadiri's team has been amino acids' potential primordial role. In 1996, the group showed for the first time that amino acid strands, or peptides, can self-replicate under enzyme-free conditions. In the current work, the Ghadiri lab extends this focus by creating another type of information system that might be capable of something akin to Darwinian evolution. "This work is a beginning step toward that goal," says Ghadiri.

Simpler Building Blocks

While much of the past work with DNA analogs such as PNA has focused on nucleobases already anchored to their backbone units, Ghadiri had the idea of working with simpler building blocks. If these blocks had easily reversed bonds, unlike DNA and PNA, it could avoid the need for enzymes while preserving key characteristics for encoding information. Looking back on the success of the experiments that have followed, Ghardiri says, "This is one of those things where you say to yourself, 'Why didn't I think of this before?'"

The resulting new system involves two main component types. The backbone units are peptides linked in a set pattern with the amino acid cysteine exposed and available to react. These peptides interact with the same nucleobases found in DNA, but each nucleobase is bound to an organic compound known as a thioester.

Thioester bonds reversibly with the cysteine on the peptides to form thioester peptide nucleic acid (tPNA). This allows the nucleobases to attach and disassemble on their own without enzymes, so that a given peptide strand will hold a shifting array of nucleobases. This process is something like soldiers walking around a field achieving a certain formation then moving into a new formation.

If an unzipped segment of DNA is added as a template to a solution with the tPNA components, the nucelobase soldiers will automatically assume a formation on peptide strands that complements the DNA according to standard Watson-Crick pairing of adenine with thymine and cytosine with guanine.

The complementary tPNA and DNA strands bond, but these pairings can then be unzipped by adding to the mix complementary DNA strands, which outcompete the tPNA for space on the initial templates. The DNA-DNA pairings remain stable, causing the tPNA components to resume their unstable shuffling until a new DNA template is added and the process begins again.

The Ghadiri team was also able to show that a strand of tPNA can act as a template, causing complementary tPNA formation and strand pairing, though they have not yet achieved self-replication for tPNA, an ultimate goal.

Tantalizing Possibilities

All of the chemical constituents of the assembled tPNA could have been found in a world before life began. "So it is tantalizing to think about the possibility of peptides and nucleic acids involved in primordial genetic systems," says Ghadiri. However, because the tPNA can so easily disassemble, the strands do not technically transmit information, and that transmission is how DNA drives life.

To better understand the potential tPNA primordial role, the team is now exploring ways that the tPNA units might be chemically transformed so that at some point the soldiers begin locking hands after achieving a certain formation, allowing the passage of information. The group is also working to determine tPNA's structure, which could resemble the famous DNA double helix or look altogether different.

[CADude12]

Originally Posted by plschwartz

This is the second time in a matter of weeks that a major break though in RNA/DNA construction from simple molecules.
The center of the intelligent design argument revolves around life being too complex to be made by chance. Now that (pseudo) appeal to Reason is gone leaving only faith. And that may not be enough to begin to correct the embarrassment of the teaching of ID as a reasonable alternative to Evolution.
For those of you with a little advanced Chemistry, it seems clear to me that differences in rate reaction in a chemical stew is the same as survival of the fittest

What fits together, fits together, and what doesn't goes back for another crack at it... until you get the best fit... and then you're on your way... it had quite a while to sit there and "stew" , didn't it?

It's been obvious from the beginning that's how it worked. ID is an attempt to fill a "gap" in the theory that never existed in the first place. Now, we are skilled enough to make it happen and detect it... demonstrating the theory.

By the way... I'm a third generation Californian. The chemical stew out here produces some of the wildest stuff on the planet...

[shibboleth]

Originally Posted by CADude12

What fits together, fits together, and what doesn't goes back for another crack at it... until you get the best fit... and then you're on your way... it had quite a while to sit there and "stew" , didn't it?

It's been obvious from the beginning that's how it worked. ID is an attempt to fill a "gap" in the theory that never existed in the first place. Now, we are skilled enough to make it happen and detect it... demonstrating the theory.

By the way... I'm a third generation Californian. The chemical stew out here produces some of the wildest stuff on the planet...

To announce at this juncture that it was "obvious from the beginning" is a little difficult to swallow but it looks good on paper. As for all the scientific jargon, well, it was a bit spicy for me, salted as it was with so many terms like: Possible clues, could eventually, might reasonably be expected, could answer, could emerge, might also, and my personal favorite: "might be capable of something akin to Darwinian evolution..." Jesus, aren't the scientists certain of anything?
And as for the "soldier" metaphor, scientific theories, like good soldiers, seem to march pretty much anywhere they're ordered to march by those in charge of the formation. Quick, back to the kitchen, your primordial soup is burning!!!

[shibboleth]

Watson-Crick? That wouldn't be the Crick would it? You know, the guy with enough (more than enough, you would think) advanced chemistry under his belt to know that somethings fishy in Evolutiontown? Hmmmm?