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Genes may be freely shared around, but where did they come from is the first place? Collectivist revolution in evolution Mark Buchanan Nature Physics 5, 531 (2009) doi:10.1038/nphys1352 excerpts “A coming revolution in biology, may go so far as to unseat Darwinian evolution as the key explanatory process in biology. The evidence for this radical turnabout has been accruing at an accelerating pace. A fair fraction of most bacterial genomes have been acquired not solely through inheritance from earlier generations, but also through horizontal gene transfer. DNA flows readily between bacterial chromosomes and the external world. Such gene flow exerts an enormous influence on evolutionary dynamics. This was first suspected when a number of bacteria around the world rapidly gained Read More ›

UD bloggers tend not to automatically follow the experts or the party line. Check out this MSNBC debate between two US Congressmen on whether Global Warming was caused by CO2. When the “denier” started to look as if he was winning on the science, the debate moderator inferred he was a creationist and anti-science. He then forced both men to profess their belief in EVOLUTION. Watch in fear! SORRY THE VIDEO HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN. TOO UNCOMFORTABLE FOR THEM? A transcript is available here. Anyone who finds the video again please let us know. Here is another one like the other one. http://www.youtube.com/watch? Another is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?

According to Allen McNeil the Gallup poll results for American scientists are: Young-Earth Creationist = 5% Guided Evolution = 40% “Naturalistic” Evolution = 55% For members of the National Academy of Sciences*, the results are: Young-Earth Creationist = 3% Guided Evolution = 14% “Naturalistic” Evolution = 83% *data from the Cornell Evolution Project, http://www.cornellevolutionproject.org So here’s how I read it.  One in six of the most accomplished living scientists believe in a living God responsible for the creation of mankind. Pascal compares the risks of belief and disbelief: 1) If I disbelieve in God and I’m wrong, I lose everything. 2) If I disbelieve in God and I’m right, I gain nothing. 3) If I believe in God and I’m Read More ›

Why does the universe seem so fine-tuned for the emergence of life – including intelligent life capable of asking that “why” question? Paul Davies of Arizona State University in his new book “Cosmic Jackpot” argues that the cosmos has made itself the way it is, stretching backward in time to the very beginning to focus in on “bio-friendliness.” When asked by Alan Boyle why the universe is bio-friendly? Is it intelligent design, or blind chance, or none of the above? Davies replies: “There are three popular responses; the intelligent-design argument; the idea that if we had a final theory of physics, then all of the undetermined parameters in the laws would be fixed by that theory; and the third is Read More ›

Darwinian “Scientists have called it “junk DNA.” They have long been perplexed by these extensive strands of genetic material that dominate the genome but seem to lack specific functions. Why would nature (or an Intelligent Designer) force the genome to carry so much excess baggage?” As predicted by Intelligent Design theorists “researchers from Princeton and Indiana University have found that junk DNA may not be so junky after all. They have discovered that DNA sequences from regions of what had been viewed as the “dispensable genome” are actually performing functions that are central for the organism. They have concluded that Darwinian theory was incorrect the genes spur an almost acrobatic rearrangement of the entire genome that is necessary for the Read More ›

A review of a book titled “The Universe: Order without design” appears in New Scientist. The summary of current ideas has a mythic sound to ordinary readers “a tiny piece of inflating “false vacuum” decays into a fireball, and stars and galaxies congeal out of the cooling debris”. Read it and see what you think. I have two questions. First, does description equal causation? Second, is the invoking of billions of theoretical and eternally undetectable other universes simply to give an atheistic explaination of our one tuned universe, more scientific or rational than believing in an Intelligent Fine Tuner?

Nature FANTOM studies networks in cells  “An international consortium has released an analysis of unprecedented detail showing the genes and proteins that guide an immature cell to its final identity. The models show that a complex network of transcription factors is responsible for a cell’s differentiation, with no one ‘master regulator’ in control. “It’s like a transcription-factor democracy,” says Harmen Bussemaker, a computational biologist at Columbia University in New York. From an evolutionary standpoint, distributing responsibility is a good strategy, he says: “It would not be a good design principle to have an Achilles’ heel.” (Don’t they mean “From a design standpoint”?) Piero Carninci of Japan’s Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), in Yokohama found that RNA is produced Read More ›

From EXPELLED Dr Caroline Crocker. “Recently I attended a lecture by Michael Shermer at the UCSD Biological Science Symposium (4/2/09). His title was, “Why Darwin Matters,” but his topic was mostly religion. He started by defining science as “looking for natural explanations for natural phenomena” and said that his purpose was to “debunk the junk and expose sloppy thinking.” We were all subjected to an evening of slapstick comedy, cheap laughs, and the demolition of straw men. His characterization of ID was that the theory says, 1) If something looks designed, 2) We can’t think how it was designed naturally, 3) Therefore we assert that it was designed supernaturally. (God of the gaps.) Okay everyone, laugh away at the stupid ID Read More ›

Hey everyone, check out these amazing animations of cellular processes at http://vcell.ndsu.nodak.edu/animations/

With all the major evolution done so early, microbe evolution has been retired for a very long time. No wonder we can’t evolve new pathways in the lab! From ScienceDaily New research shows that for microbes, large-scale evolution was completed 2.5 billion years ago. “For microbes, it appears that almost all of their major evolution took place before we have any record of them, way back in the dark mists of prehistory,” said Roger Buick, a University of Washington paleontologist and astrobiologist. All living organisms need nitrogen, a basic component of amino acids and proteins. But for atmospheric nitrogen to be usable, it must be “fixed,” or converted to a biologically useful form. Some microbes turn atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, a Read More ›

In an ironic twist, professors arguing that nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of natural selection, are experiencing a different type of selection pressure themselves. How important is evolutionary biology really? From NATURE The Year of Darwin has got off to a bad start. In the Netherlands a national reorganization of university budgets has led Leiden University to sack its classical evolutionary-biology staff. “There will be no one left who can teach natural selection,” says population ecologist Jacques van Alphen, one of six tenured professors who will lose their jobs on 1 March. Their jobs have been eliminated in favour of jobs in molecular biology. Leiden is experiencing the consequences of a decision by science minister Ronald Read More ›

Adam Rutherford from Nature shows he is blinded even to an understanding of the difference between ID  and creationism. In his teacher’s TV rant he calls for the re-education of the 18% of UK science teachers not convinced that Darwinism has, in his words, “withstood all attacks”. Commenting on the same survey, UK Daily Telegraph defines ID as “the theory that the universe shows signs of having been designed rather than evolving” In their failure to even grasp the basic definition of ID, these people are, the words of Richard Dawkins, “either stupid, ignorant or dare I say it, evil.” Teachers.tv video

   In a new spin to the “Random Mutations and Natural Selection produces all the wonderful things we see around us” belief system, mature aged geneticist (of “I’ve spent a long time working on snails, although I have now moved into slugs” fame) Steve Jones of England seems to harp back to the days when old men like him could get a young girl, and half the children died in their youth. Social Darwinism comes out with another great contribution to the welfare of our society. If human evolution has been driven by fathers being over 35, there would have been little or no evolution during times when life expectancy was under 35.  The science community generally believes life expectancy for Read More ›

In a visit down under, Lawrence Krauss is busy convincing people that there is no evidence for design in the universe. Notice in this quote he says that if he were able to see organised matter conveying symbolic meaning, then this would, for him,  constitute evidence. “At a time when religion and science are going back to war, and battles over intelligent design and creationism are heating up, new discoveries are seized on by both sides to prove or disprove the existence of God. There are those who say that, while scientific discoveries are pushing evolution further away from religious belief, cosmology is unveiling mysteries that point to the existence of God. Krauss, however, says that is just “wishful thinking”. Read More ›

This month in Current Biology Vol 18 No 16, Howard C. Berg writes a “Quick guide” to the Bacterial Flagellar motor. In it he outlines what is currently known of these amazing structures.

“The flagellar motor is a remarkably small rotary electric motor that includes a stator, drive shaft, bushings, mounting plate, and a switch complex. The motors are powered by protons or sodium ions, that flow through channels from the outside to the inside of the cell. Depending upon the configuration, the rod, hook, and filament are driven clock wise or counter clock wise. Other components include a rod cap, discarded upon rod completion, hook cap, discarded upon hook completion, hook-length control protein, and a factor that blocks late-gene expression.”

As “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, Berg concludes with a few brief comments.
Read More ›