We are told, “When facing a predator, single cells sometimes unite to defend themselves, paving the way for more complex multicellular life forms to evolve:
One theory posits that single-celled organisms evolved multicellularity through a specific series of adaptations. First, cells began adhering to each other, creating cell groups that have a higher survival rate, partly because it’s harder for predators to kill a group of cells than a single cell. But this defensive adaptation comes at the price of a lowered reproduction rate; only through adaptations acquired over generations do cell groups become better at reproducing than single cells.
Stephen Johnson, “How evolution shifts from unicellular to multicellular life” at BigThink (July 14, 2021)
The theory was tested on algae:
After six months, all the algae strains that faced the predator had evolved into cell groups. Meanwhile, only four of the 10 algae strains without predators evolved into groups. Surprisingly, this transition toward simple multicellularity occurred relatively quickly, over just 500 generations or six months. (The algae replicated about once every 9 hours.) …
After cell groups boosted their defenses against predators, they were able to increase their reproductive rates. The researchers noted that these adaptations occurred on the genome level and were heritable, suggesting that with enough exposure to a selection pressure, like predation, the evolution toward multicellularity might be inevitable.
Stephen Johnson, “How evolution shifts from unicellular to multicellular life” at BigThink (July 14, 2021)
The paper is open access.
But wait. Before we get carried away, botanist Margaret Helder writes to say,
Lots of algae exhibit clumping together in groups. This is not the definition of multicellularity. There are quite a number of colonial relatives of Chlamydomonas, for example like Eudorina, Pandorina and Volvox. They are not evolving into anything.
Multicellularity, by definition, involves differentiation of cells into different tissues with different roles.
This study seems very simplistic. One wonders if the referees knew anything about algae.
The referees do know that claiming a breakthrough is good for business.
Generally, a colony of cells is not a multicellular body, even if the cells co-operate. It takes more than that. They must be obligate members of a system.
Here are the study’s vids:
and
Here’s a Volvox colony:
just another example of Darwinian misleading interpretation of reality … we have seen this so many times in the past … a misinterpretation after a misinterpretation after a misinterpretation …
Most lay people are not aware of, but according to Darwinian theory, multicellularity should have evolved repeatedly, many times independently … the funny thing is, today, it somehow stopped evolving :))) These things always happen in deep past :))))) These things are so tricky :)))))
Darwinian clowns….
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bies.201200143
Opening the lens a bit, the basic distinction is essentially meaningless. A beehive or a human family has division of labor and obligate roles. Each personality type is born with its talents and limitations, just as each cell type is born with its talents and limitations. Drones and workers and queens move into their assigned places, just as skin cells and neurons and eggs move into their assigned places. The structure is the same, only the size and complexity of the members changes.
Emerson said it:
The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find the animalcule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on eternity — all find room to consist in the smallest creature. So do we put all our life into every act. The true doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point.
Margeret Helder –
First line of abstract:
So yes they do know about cell differentiation.
Before anyone argues that they don’t show evolution of multicellularity, the title of the paper is “The evolution of convex trade-offs enables the transition towards multicellularity”.
Bob @3: The phrase, “enables the transition towards multicellularity” is just an assumption – an evolutionary gloss based on wishful thinking and materialistic presuppositions. It was not seen in the actual experiment, therefore it is merely another evolutionary “just-so story”.
Moreover, if this transition to multicellularity is so easy and quick to get started (only 500 generations?), then why were there only single-cell life forms on Earth for almost 3 billion years?
Bob quotes the first line of the paper
Bob then states, “Before anyone argues that they don’t show evolution of multicellularity, the title of the paper is “The evolution of convex trade-offs enables the transition towards multicellularity”.
Golly gee whiz, and I guess, following this line of reasoning, that this also proves that Bunny Rabbits that jump higher than other Bunny Rabbits will one day jump to the moon?
What this really shows evidence for, is not that single cell organisms may someday become “dinosaurs to human beings”, (as was stated in the press release), but instead it is evidence for just how gullible Darwinists are in that Darwinists imagine that they can see evidence for Darwinian evolution within every passing cloud.
There are a few ‘minor’ problems with their claim that this provides empirical evidence for the Darwinian claim that algae may someday become “dinosaurs to human beings”.
First off, as the authors themselves admitted, the “algal clones that were selected under rotifer predation were more likely to grow as cell groups and displayed a decrease in growth rate”
And a “decrease in growth rate” strongly suggests loss of function mutations were involved in getting the single cells to group together.
And indeed, the authors admit as much when they say that the subsequent compensatory mutations that increased the reproduction rate somewhere close to where it was before, “are likely involved in mitigating the consequences of growth in cell groups.”
So, If anything, at the molecular level, this is most likely a ‘two steps backwards’ process. (in other words, this experiment is actually evidence AGAINST Darwinian evolution, not for it),
The first ‘backwards step’ was the loss of function mutations that were involved involved in getting the single cells to group together,,,, As Behe commented on a similar experiment back in 2012, “the results can be regarded as the loss of two pre-existing abilities: 1) the loss of the ability to separate from the mother cell during cell division; and 2) the loss of control of apoptosis.”
And the second ‘backwards step’ was that the ‘mitigating’ mutations, (as the authors themselves termed the subsequent ‘compensatory’ mutations), were, in all likelihood, also loss of function mutations.
As Dr. Behe has shown (from his study of all the evolution experiments going back over 5 decades now), “Loss of function mutations that give an adaptive advantage are far more likely to fix in a population than gain of function mutations”
The authors themselves did not get into the nitty-gritty of the molecular details of exactly what the ‘mitigating’ mutations were doing, (i.e. the mutations that increased the reproductive rate back to near what it was before), so they themselves don’t really know if new functionality was created, (i.e. if any new proteins or genes were created in order to compensate for the loss in the reproduction rate), but they only speculated that these ‘mitigating’ mutations might involve “certain metabolism processes and regulative control of cellular processes.”
Call me very unimpressed with their experiment.
Besides the researchers failing to demonstrate that any new functional proteins or genes were created, and even failing to demonstrate that the mutations were ‘gain of function’ mutations and that they were not, in fact, ‘loss of function’ mutations. The researchers did not even really demonstrate anything new that has not already been known about for a long time.
Which is to say, single celled organisms living in groups is certainly not something new, but is something that has, most likely, been present since life was first created on earth. (And is therefore something that, in and of itself, presents its own insurmountable difficulties for Darwinists).
Specifically, we now have evidence for ‘microbial mats’ dating back through the ages that were “present as life was beginning on Earth”
This following site has an illustration that shows some of the interdependent biogeochemical complexity involved in ancient ‘Microbial Mats’ ,,,
Please note, that if even one major type of bacteria group did not exist in these ancient microbial mats, in this complex environmental cycle of biogeochemical interdependence, that was illustrated on the preceding site, then all of the different bacteria would soon die out. This essential biogeochemical interdependence, of the most primitive different types of bacteria that we have evidence of on ancient earth, makes the origin of life ‘problem’ for neo-Darwinists that much worse. For now not only do neo-Darwinists have to explain how the ‘miracle of life’ happened once with the origin of photosynthetic bacteria, but now they must also explain how all these different types bacteria, that photosynthetic bacteria are dependent on, in this irreducibly complex biogeochemical web, miraculously arose just in time to supply the necessary nutrients, in their biogeochemical link in the chain, for photosynthetic bacteria to continue to survive for any extended period of time.
And also note the tectonic activity of the earth must also be fine-tuned to some degree in order to maintain the proper biogeochemical balance on the surface of the earth in order for the bacterial groups to continue to survive.
Moreover, as if all this was not bad enough for Darwinists, there simply isn’t any evidence in the fossil record that Darwinists can appeal to that would indicate that bacterial cells ever formed anything other than these ‘simple aggregates’:
Moreover, to compare this experiment to what actually happens when a multicellular organism is created during sexual reproduction and embryogenesis, is to compare a wet safety match to the detonation of a nuclear bomb.
In other words, the comparison is not even close.
Sexual reproduction is just as enigmatic now as it was in Darwin’s day, (if not more so),
And embryogenesis, in and of itself, makes the enigma of Sexual reproduction look mild in comparison.
As Alexander Tsiaras states, “The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go, the complexity of these, the mathematical models on how these things are indeed done, are beyond human comprehension. Even though I am a mathematician, I look at this with the marvel of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us. It’s a mystery, it’s magic, it’s divinity.”
For Darwinists to play embryogenesis off as if it is no big deal is disingenuous to say the least.
No one, (and I mean NO ONE to especially include Darwinists), has a realistic clue as to how a single fertilized egg can transform itself, via embryogenesis, into a multicellular creature with a distinct biological form.
As the following recent article stated, “Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis as irrelevant.”,,, “At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved.”
And there is a very good reason why “the problem of biological form remains unsolved” for Darwinists.
It is ‘immaterial information’ that determines what form an organism may have. And yet, the materialistic processes of Darwinian evolution are grossly inadequate to explain the creation of immaterial information. Indeed, Darwinian materialism is not even in the same ballpark as immaterial information is.
And just how much immaterial information is required to explain the ‘biological form’ of a multicellular organism?
Well, the ‘immaterial’ information to build a human infant, atom by atom, would take up the equivalent of enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000.
So just where is this massive amount of ‘positional’ information coming from in a developing embryo if it cannot possibly be contained within the 10^9 bits of the information in the DNA of the fertilized egg of a human?
Well, at about the 41:00 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Wells, (who specializes in embryology), using a branch of mathematics called category theory, demonstrates that, during embryological development, ‘positional information’ must somehow be added to the developing embryo, ‘from the outside’, by some ‘non-material’ method, in order to explain the transdifferentiation of cells into multiple different states during embryological development.
Moreover, as the following video highlights, there is now found to be a massive, ubiquitous, amount of non-local, beyond space and time, quantum entanglement and/or quantum information within the molecular biology of living organisms.
The thing about quantum entanglement that is so interesting is that it requires a ‘non-local’ cause that is beyond space and time. As the following article states, ““Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”
In other words, Intelligent Design, and a direct inference to ‘beyond space and time’ God, as the Intelligence behind life, (via the non-locality of quantum information and/or the non-locality of quantum entanglement ), has, for all intents and purposes, finally achieved experimental confirmation.
Darwinists simply have no beyond space and time cause to appeal to in order to be able to explain where this massive amount of positional and/or quantum information could possibly be coming from in a developing embryo. Whereas, on the other hand, Christians have postulated a beyond space and time cause for embryological development all along.
On top of all that, quantum information is physically conserved and therefore cannot be created nor destroyed,,,
The implication of finding ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every important biomolecule in our bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication is, of course, the fact that we now have very strong empirical evidence suggesting that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff states in the following article, the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”
All of these recent developments in quantum biology supporting the reality of the soul are, or should be, very exciting for people to learn about. Why Darwinists would fight tooth and nail against accepting such exciting evidence as this, I have no idea. Fighting against such a wondrous and exciting finding in science, (a finding that strongly supports the physical reality of a soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material, temporal, bodies), simply doesn’t make any sense to me.
Verse:
Fasteddious – the authors don’t claim to get to full multicellularity, so they certainly don’t show it occurred in 500 generations.
Evolutionary equivocation. These organisms were intelligently designed to form colonies when the need arises.