Posted on 04/01/2006 10:50:28 AM PST by Condorman
Lincoln, NE (AP) - Researchers at the University of Nebraska have, for the first time, confirmed a prediction of the controversial theory known as intelligent design, or ID. The unexpected discovery was made by Paavamanti Ashook and Jessica Aylesworth, two graduate students working under the direction of Dr. Peter Harl, a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Nebraska, while they were sequencing a section of the genetic code for the turquoise-browed motmot, Eumomota superciliosa, a Central American songbird.
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During the relatively routine procedure, the research team uncovered a gene in the turquoise-browed motmot that does not appear in any of its nearest relatives. “It came as a complete surprise,” said Aylesworth, “when we showed Dr. Harl he went to the lab and reran the sequence himself.”
“What we found is a gene with no evolutionary precursor,” said Dr. Harl. “There is no homologous gene in any other species of motmot. There's nothing like it in any other kingfisher that we can tell. It looks like someone stuck in an extra gene in the middle of the genome when no one was looking. At this point, the theory of evolution cannot provide a satisfactory answer. ID provides an explanation that works.”
ID is the scientific theory that evolution was guided is some way by an intelligent force, and was the subject of a controversial court ruling in Dover, PA last December in which the school board was forbidden from mandating ID as part of the science curriculum. Although the theory refuses to identify the designer, many adherents claim that the designer is God. According to one interpretation of the theory, some animals will contain certain features without a direct evolutionary pathway, as if the designer inserted or deleted a component of the species independent of the commonly accepted forces of natural selection.
“We will need to do more research,” Ashook said, “In the meantime, this definitely causes problems for evolution. But as a scientist I have to choice but to follow the evidence.”
The team’s results will be published in the next issue of the journal The Natural World.
He probably got fired for publishing a finding that runs counter to evolution.
Yes, and then all record of his existence was expurgated. In light of this stunning discovery I'm forced to acknowledge: It is true, evolutionists have been in the habit of burying data that disagrees with them, and perhaps contrary scientists on occasion as well.
LOL!!
I don't think I've ever been paged to a thread before.
Can you demonstrate where new genes come from? I don't believe there is any scientific evidence that a mutation has ever produced a new species or even a new organ or system in an existing species. Protozoa do not have teeth. Where did the genes come from that produced teeth if we have evolved from protozoa? Mutations concern changes in existing organisms, they do not produce new ones.
Genes can arise in a variety of different ways. Some ways are by gene duplication and divergence, gene theft and modification, and transposition either interrupting a gene or converting previously non-coding DNA to coding.
I don't believe there is any scientific evidence that a mutation has ever produced a new species or even a new organ or system in an existing species. Protozoa do not have teeth. Where did the genes come from that produced teeth if we have evolved from protozoa? Mutations concern changes in existing organisms, they do not produce new ones.
How much change can occur in an existing organism before it is no longer the same?
MGP and BGP are matrix and bone gamma-carboxyglutamic acid proteins. BGP is osteocalcin.
"Origin and Evolution of BGP and MGP—It is quite clear that BGP and MGP have a common origin and that they are more closely related to each other than to any other VKD protein. This is well supported by the data base searching, the exon patterns, and protein sequence alignments showing that 1) BGP and MGP genes share the same simple gene organization and protein structure and 2) the C-terminal domain signature is similar in MGP and BGP. It is also clear that BGP and MGP are nearly if not completely absent in most non-vertebrate taxa. Levels of sequence similarity between BGP and MGP are much higher than one would expect to occur by convergence, suggesting that this gene group originated through gene duplication followed by subsequent sequence divergence. This duplication (gene, chromosome, or genome duplication) probably occurred very early in vertebrate evolution, being almost certainly an ancient event. Strong evidence for whole genome duplication has been shown for vertebrates (57). After the divergence of the cephalochordates from the chordate line, a genomic duplication occurred before jawless fish evolved around 500 Myr ago (Fig. 7). Another genomic duplication event probably led to the evolution of jawed fish around 400 Myr ago (Fig. 7). These two duplications led to the development of many distinctive vertebrate features, such as cartilage and bone. We hypothesize that the first genome duplication (before the branching of jawless fish) originated the ancestor gene of MGP, and the second genome duplication (before the branching of cartilaginous fish) would have produced the BGP ancestor gene. The BGP (380 Myr ago) and MGP (480 Myr ago) emergence times estimated from the evolutionary rate agree well with this conjecture. The appearance of MGP would be followed by cartilage formation and that of BGP by bone formation. After duplication, gene duplicates (BGP in this case) often experience relaxed evolutionary constraints. This promotes functional diversification of duplicates and biochemical innovation through mutations and recombination. In other words, duplicates evolve to acquire new functions. Several more speculative lines of evidence for BGP being a duplicate of MGP have been collected: 1) the presence of a MGP-like immunoreactive protein has been observed in lamprey (the more ancient species tested), whereas BGP was not detected7; 2) MGP is associated with cartilage, which appeared with the first vertebrates, whereas BGP is only associated with bone, a structure that appeared later in evolution; and 3) BGP seems to be better conserved than MGP."
The precursor to MGP did not have the same function that MGP has and unfortunately has been lost forever. Interestingly, the fruit fly protein Msp-300 (muscle-specific protein 300) C-terminus has some homology to well-conserved (and therefore required for function) regions of MGP. Msp-300 and MGP may have had a common origin in a gene existing prior to the evolution of the vertebrates.
http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/280/29/26659
"Evolution of Matrix and Bone g-Carboxyglutamic Acid Proteins in Vertebrates." Vincent Laizé, Paulo Martel, Carla S. B. Viegas, Paul A. Price, and M. Leonor Cancela. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2005, 289, 26659-26668.
"However, this one can be traced back quite far enough to cause any young earth creationist great discomfort."
I don't think so......i'm sure not feeling any discomfort by all this rambling by evolutionary biologists.
Did you know the odds are 10(161) to 1 that not one usable protein would have been produced by chance in ALL THE HISTORY of the earth. Note this is a figure containing 161 zeroes. It might be well to recall that even if one molecule were obtained, it would not help at all in arranging the second protein molecule unless there existed an accurate duplication process. Even if there were such a process, there are many other kinds of proteins needed before there can be a living organism. Did you know that in a minimal cell, the 239 protein molecules required include at least 124 different protein species.
So all your neat little hypotheticals are not based on facts just philosophical meanderings.
The probablility of forming one protein molecule by chance is one 10 to the 243rd power..that is a figure of 1 followed by 243 zeros. A fraction so small that one may say the probability is zero.
Well, perhaps I should have said "any rational young earth creationist."
Please produce a source for your calculations.
Experimentation has actually shown that in a random library of DNA sequences enough will code for functional proteins to make the origin of new functional proteins by random means in early life forms quite plausible.
And it is hypothesized that we start with RNA, not proteins. Perhaps you should go review your cell biology--ribosomal RNAs are the engines behind protein synthesis.
By the way, I'm making a mental note that I have now repeatedly given you plausible mechanisms for the invention of new genes so that I can reproduce the same evidence next time I come across you asking this same question again. . .
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