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To: DannyTN
Name one useful thing that evolution has added to science that couldn't have been discovered in the absence of the theory.

Obviously your request cannot be fulfilled exactly as stated. It would always be possible to surmise, after the fact, that some discovery might have been reached by an entirely different route than it actually was. However they are innumerable discoveries that were, in fact, made in the context of evolutionary assumptions.

As one example, consider the recent, but rapidly advancing, theory of "fragile breakage". It has long been known that chromosomes have frequently been "rearranged" in the past (pieces of them moved around from place to place, as well as instances of one chromosome being split into two, or two being fused into one) but it was long assumed that the chromosomes broke at more or less random points along their length. The fragile breakage theory asserts that this in not the case, but that chromosomes instead tend to break at specific places.

Fragile breakage was initially suggested by comparing genome sequences of humans, mice and other species. Note that you would only infer such a theory if you believed these species were related by common descent. If you assume they are seperately created, or that their DNA code is specifically "designed," then the best you would find is that the "designer," for reasons unknown, happened to arrange different chromosomes by shifting around more-or-less descrete blocks of code. It's only if you assume that actual rearrangements occured historically that you get the "fragile breakage" theory.

Of course, once you have such a theory you might look to see if chromosomal mutations that occur in living organisms today might fit this pattern, and it was only subsequently discovered, after the evolutionary theory was constructed, that they do. In fact fragile breakage even has medical significance, as it (currently appears that) it may help to explain chromosomal mutations that cause cancer by lengthening teleomeres (structures at the ends of chromosomes that normally gradually "wear away" as the cell divides) thereby interferring with programmed cell death.

51 posted on 11/01/2003 2:02:21 PM PST by Stultis
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To: Stultis
[fragile breakage]

Interesting, I'm always learning new stuff on FR, especially the science threads. Thanks!

76 posted on 11/01/2003 6:09:10 PM PST by Virginia-American
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