Posted on 07/06/2007 11:20:54 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
The study also found that these similarities were absent from fruit fly and nematode genomes, contradicting the widely held belief that organisms become more complex through evolution. The findings suggest that the ancestral animal genome was quite complex, and fly and worm genomes lost some of that intricacy as they evolved.
It’s surprising to find such a “high level of genomic complexity in a supposedly primitive animal such as the sea anemone,” Koonin told The Scientist. It implies that the ancestral animal “was already extremely highly complex, at least in terms of its genomic organization and regulatory and signal transduction circuits, if not necessarily morphologically.”
(Excerpt) Read more at the-scientist.com ...
Hardly. Neither the original theory of Darwin, nor the modern version of the evolutionary theories predict or even expect let alone demand that organisms move from the simple to the complex.
There has been an observed tendency to go from extremely simple to more complex but this is nothing more than a side effect of starting with the extremely simple. If you start with something absolutely simple and modify it in some way, the probability is that at least some changes will lead to the more complex but none will become less complex - the absolutely simple cannot get any simpler, it is already at the extreme. However when some complexity has been reached, both directions become possible, which is why 'Darwinists' as you call us, believe that Cetaceans, Sirenians, and Pinipeds have lost some morphological functionality and that viruses, and a number of parasites were at one time more complex than they are currently.
The complexity of organisms, as far as complexity can be quantified, is likely to form a skewed distribution with a longer right tail than left. What you are suggesting would form a skewed distribution with an extremely long left tail and almost no right tail. These two aren't the same.
The only people who insist that Evolution demands an increase in complexity are those with the desire to attack the evolutionary theories.
"Seeing how sea anemones are thought to precede the Cambrian explosion, this article flies in the face of Darwinist expectations (and to their credit they admit it).
The authors found that the sea anemone genome contains about 450 million base pairs and 18,000 protein-coding genes. They identified many gene families common to all sequenced animals. "We have this basic toolkit now for the whole animal kingdom,"
This doesn't sound like the scientists believe that the findings 'fly in the face of Darwinist expectations'. Funny that scientists haven't had a fit about Amoeba dubia which is morphologically much simpler than say Homo sapiens but has a genome of 670,000,000,000 compared to our 3,100,000,000.
"Of course, they omit the fact that IDers have predicted frontloading all along, but such behavior is to be expected from nature worshiping darwinists.
I take it then that if you agree with front loading you also agree with common descent? If the complexity for increased complexity has been front loaded this implies that all later organisms gained their complexity from simpler forms.
Seeing as how the deceitful poster subtitled the article with a mention of the completely bogus concept of intelligent Design/Creation Science, I believe my question was perfectly within reason. I notice I didn't get an answer? Of course no one really expects anything resembling honesty from the lunatic fringe pushing this ridiculous intelligent Design/Creation Science farce, do they?
Does the theory of plate tectonics glorify God? If so, how? If not, do you believe in the theory of plate tectonics? How about the theory of optics, or the theory of gravity? If none of the commonly-accepted scientific theories glorify God, why is the theory of evolution held to a different standard?
I wonder how anyone can look at the photos from the Hubble Space Telescope and believe that the universe is less than 10,000 years old. I look at the deep space photo that contains thousands of little splotches, each a galaxy possibly teeming with life, and I feel my heart leap with a joy I never experienced in church. I guess different people find their epiphanies in different ways.
http://hubblesite.org http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1996/01/image/a/format/large_web/
Being a Trekker is not.
Because C++ is too lame for the job?
Most machine language programmers have died or gone onto the happy land of bits, just when the tools are there to let them do what they could not do 30 years ago?
Could it be a big conspiracy by intel to keep you on P4's forever?
Because Steve Jobs worked on the stupid iPhone instead of something useful for things other than listening to music?
I am not trying to falsify Darwinism. I am saying that as a working hypothesis, there are still some glaring gaps which cannot be satisfactorily reconciled.
Is there intelligent design? At the moment, that explanation, which seems to invoke supernatural intervention, has to be placed in the category of “creation myth”. There may, after all, be a simple and revealed truth to be read in the genome of every Terrestrial living creature, that ties it all into a unified whole.
Like, WHY are only four basic amino acids used in the construction of DNA? And why does the DNA helix replicate? Accidental and random chemical reactions alone do not give rise to that spark that ignites life. Did life arise spontaneously, or was there some kind of selection made? Is DNA the only way life can be ignited in otherwise lifeless compounds? Were there perhaps other, and competing, compounds, that DNA won out over, and thus became dominant?
People have not yet started to ask the right questions. Lord knows, I would not know how to ask them.
Be more specific. ID proponents conceeded common descent some time ago. It's not even on the table.
There are new earth Christians and old earth Christians. Everything still is the CREATION OF OUR HEAVENLY FATHER. Now I’ve always been an old earth Christian. However, there has been evidence coming to light in the last few years that make me go HMMMM..........
To my mind, the researchers’ assumption of common descent doesn’t make much difference. Data is data, and can be interpreted and reinterpreted without regard for the data collector’s original intent for the same. I’m interpreting the data as both supportive of ID front-loading and supportive of Creationist front-loading, and I’m interpreting the data as yet one more nail in the coffin of neo-Darwinism. It is a nail in the coffin of neo-darwinism because it further constricts the time that RM+NS had to act in order to construct an extremely complex, heritable genome. It is supportive of ID frontloading because as you constrict the time available for the same, frontloading becomes more and more tenable in direct proportion to the degree that neo-Darwinism becomes untenable. Finally, the data also lends support to (and certainly doesn’t contradict) the notion that life came from a single designer (shares a common design that points to the common designer), that life was created spontaneously, and that the created kinds were frontlaoded for survival (to include genetic variation, but that also resist any theories that postulate that animals can genetically vary beyond the limits of the created kinds).
Now, if you think the data contained in the original post falsifies what I have just outlined, feel free to cite the data in such a way as to prove me wrong (remembering, of course, that I am fully aware that I’m using the data against the very theory motivating the researchers themselves).
That’s a coming debate between Creationists and IDers that will begin in earnest once the Church of Darwin is vanquished.
But the data here IS a broad comparison of animal genomes. It compares sequences from extremely different animals, from invertebrates through mammals, and finds that a large percentage of animal genes (or at least progenitors of "gene families" that latter grew through gene duplication and evolution) presumably -- and presumably only BECAUSE of their broad distribution among ALL animals -- were present in very early and anatomically "simple" animals.
Now if you believe, as you do, that these animals are UNrelated by ordinary reproduction, and the consequent copying of their genomes from hereditarily common copies thereof in the process, then you're not entitled to follow the conclusion that an ancestral animal, which you don't believe ever existed, was "frontloaded" in terms of having all these genes that would later be used and modified differently by it's ancestors. But that's what you're doing. You're endorsing a conclusion which is unavoidably and uniquely based on premises with you utterly reject.
Really? Can you give some examples? I'm genuinely curious. My observation of the antievolution movement suggests that the "classic" young earth arguments (e.g. moon dust, shrinking sun, grand canyon, sea salts, earth's magnetic field, etc) have all been pretty decisively smashed, and that not many new ones have taken their place. However I haven't followed antievolutionism as closely in the last decade or so as I used to, so if I'm out of date enlighten me.
I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you.
Um, no, I don't. It's just that we haven't even gotten to that argument yet. I've simply been conceding your characterization of the evidence for the purpose of arguing that you have no basis for accepting even that characterization.
and Creationist claims that the similarity in animal genomes stem from common design (which, for some reason, you have a hard time coming to grips with).
No, I don't. I readily concede that, if creation were true, we would expect the Creator to use common elements in His designs (if only so his creatures could eat each other, for for many other reasons as well). What I dispute is that a creationist is entitled to expect any particular pattern to these commonalities. And I certainly dispute, and have been here disputing, that a creationist is entitled to expect or find vindication and a very particular pattern that only crystallizes and emerges as a pattern at all on the assumption of, and therefore looks like, universal common descent of all animals.
(if only so his creatures could eat each other, for but for many other reasons as well)
disputing, that a creationist is entitled to expect or find vindication and in a very particular pattern
Agreed.
==What I dispute is that a creationist is entitled to expect any particular pattern to these commonalities.
I suppose it depends on what kind of Creationism you’re talking about. IDers, although certainly not YEC, certainly would expect common patterns in living things re: frontloading. And this paper lends credence to such expectations. Biblical YEC would expect that each of the created kinds would be frontloaded with the capacity for variation within the limits of its overall design. A Biblical YEC would also expect signs of descent with modification within the created kinds, but definite breaks/discontinuity between the lineages of the created kinds. As per Romans 1:20, A Biblical YEC would also expect that all organisms would be linked by design and point to a single designer (and that nature would resist materialist explanations like Darwinism). Thus, a Biblical YEC would expect to find a commonality of design that resists naturalistic explanations while at the same time bearing the marks of a single designer (as opposed to multiple designers). Thus, a Biblical YEC would indeed be "entitled to expect" common life patterns (unity within diversity) that would point to a single designer/creator, such as genome similarity, system similarities, cellular similarities, anatomical similarities, etc., etc...all of which is supported by the original article, and none of which is contradicted by the same.
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