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Is there a law of evolution? Can it predict what aliens would be like?

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The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens—and Ourselves

Arik Kershenbaum’s new book, Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy, argues that convergent evolution on Earth helps us understand what to expect from extraterrestrial life. But then he encounters a difficulty:

The trouble is, we don’t know what aliens have for genes. So this is something we can’t say is quite as universal as some of the other constraints of biology on Earth. It may be that the way that alien life forms are related to each other is completely different, and so their sociality may be completely different as well. – Dan Falk, “Why Extraterrestrial Life May Not Seem Entirely Alien” at Quanta (March 18, 2021)

News, “Zoologist: Law of evolution can predict what aliens will be like” at Mind Matters News

Indeed.

Convergent evolution is a fact of life on Earth and it does imply that there is a structure and design to life, based on physics. But how far can we take these assumptions when we venture into unknown territory?

Kershenbaum wipes out, unfortunately, when he tries to claim that human culture is genetically based. In reality,

These beliefs are immaterial and may or may not originate in genes, as opposed to culture. If extraterrestrials are smart enough to be in touch with us, why shouldn’t we assume that they are not governed wholly by genes either but also by immaterial beliefs?

News, “Zoologist: Law of evolution can predict what aliens will be like” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: Kershenbaum’s argument fails when he addresses human culture: It just isn’t true that co-operation among humans is governed wholly by genes. But his book is probably a fun read.


See also: SETI director warns: Those aliens could be malevolent. Harvard astronomer agrees: We’ve sent a lot of signals in recent years; they may have got them. But now what? Astronomer Avi Loeb has a low-risk practical idea: Look for alien debris on our still, lifeless, atmosphere-free Moon

and

Why some experts hope we don’t find life on Mars. Many thinkers worry about what will happen if the extraterrestrials land. But will they feel worse if we never find ET?

Comments
"convergent (repeated) evolution" is a term invented by Darwinists. Basically, it is a term to explain away / down play the huge problems Darwinian theory is facing. I run a blog on repeated evolution so i am pretty familiar with this subject. I am pretty sure, there is no such a thing as repeated evolution, more reasonable is to think, that we are looking at a common design (but can Darwinists admit that? Obviously they can't). Unless you believe, that e.g. such a complex organ like placenta (which among other things requires an interaction between mother and fetus), should have evolved 100 times repeatedly and independently across animal kingdom in evolutionary unrelated species, by random mutations of DNA, . Obviously, this is a non-sense. There is something wrong. a mainstream article: "Using the placenta to understand how complex organs evolve" ( be advised, you won't learn how complex organs/e.g. placenta evolve) https://theconversation.com/using-the-placenta-to-understand-how-complex-organs-evolve-70107#:~:text=Placentas%20have%20evolved%20across%20animals,always%20by%20repurposing%20existing%20tissues.&text=Most%20of%20them%20lay%20eggs,the%20offspring%20are%20fully%20developed. and my blog on repeated evolution is here https://www.stuffhappens.infomartin_r
April 25, 2021
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As to this claim from the Cambridge Lecturer,
"He argues that evolution is a universal law of nature, like gravity"
Small problem, no one can ever seem to find this 'universal law' of evolution, (save for finding it in the imagination of Darwinists). Go to wikipedia for yourself and look up 'Laws of Science' and you will not find a 'universal law' of evolution listed anywhere on the page.
Laws of science 1 Conservation laws 1.1 Conservation and symmetry 1.2 Continuity and transfer 2 Laws of classical mechanics 2.1 Principle of least action 3 Laws of gravitation and relativity 3.1 Modern laws 3.2 Classical laws 4 Thermodynamics 5 Electromagnetism 6 Photonics 7 Laws of quantum mechanics 8 Radiation laws 9 Laws of chemistry 10 Geophysical laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_science
As Ernst Mayr himself conceded, “In biology, as several other people have shown, and I totally agree with them, there are no natural laws in biology corresponding to the natural laws of the physical sciences.”
The Evolution of Ernst: Interview with Ernst Mayr – 2004 (page 2 of 14) Excerpt: biology (Darwinian Evolution) differs from the physical sciences in that in the physical sciences, all theories, I don’t know exceptions so I think it’s probably a safe statement, all theories are based somehow or other on natural laws. In biology, as several other people have shown, and I totally agree with them, there are no natural laws in biology corresponding to the natural laws of the physical sciences. ,,, And so that’s what I do in this book. I show that the theoretical basis, you might call it, or I prefer to call it the philosophy of biology, has a totally different basis than the theories of physics. https://www.scientificamerican.com/media/pdf/0004D8E1-178C-10EB-978C83414B7F012C.pdf
In the following article, Roger Highfield makes much the same observation as Ernst Mayr and states, ,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—’laws’—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology.
WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Evolution is True – Roger Highfield – January 2014 Excerpt: If evolutionary biologists are really Seekers of the Truth, they need to focus more on finding the mathematical regularities of biology, following in the giant footsteps of Sewall Wright, JBS Haldane, Ronald Fisher and so on. ,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—’laws’—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology. Little seems to have changed from a decade ago when the late and great John Maynard Smith wrote a chapter on evolutionary game theory for a book on the most powerful equations of science: his contribution did not include a single equation. http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25468
Professor Murray Eden of MIT, in a paper entitled “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory” stated that “the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.”
“It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109. https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~christos/evol/compevol_files/Wistar-Eden-1.pdf
Moreover, the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, a law with great mathematical explanatory power in science directly, or almost directly, contradicts the primary Darwinian claim that greater and greater levels of functional complexity can easily be had and/or ‘naturally selected’ for over long periods of time. Indeed, entropy’s main claim is that, over long periods of time, everything in the universe will eventually decay into simpler and simpler states until what is termed thermodynamic equilibrium is finally reached. This is not a minor problem for Darwinists. As Eddington himself explained, "if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
“The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it to collapse in deepest humiliation.” - Arthur Eddington, New Pathways in Science
Moreover, convergent evolution, contrary to what this Cambridge Lecturer believes, is certainly not evidence that evolution is true, and that therefore aliens may be very similar to life on earth, but instead convergent evolution, in and of itself, is evidence against the claim that evolution is true. As Dr. Cornelius Hunter explains, convergent evolution shows us that "The species do not fall into the expected evolutionary pattern." And that "this is a hard failure" (for evolutionary theory)
The Real Problem With Convergence - Cornelius Hunter - May 25, 2017 Excerpt: 21st century evolutionists are still befuddled by convergence, which is rampant in biology, and how it could occur. This certainly is a problem for the theory.,,, a fundamental evidence and prediction of evolution is falsified. The species do not fall into the expected evolutionary pattern. The failure of fundamental predictions — and this is a hard failure — is fatal for scientific theories. It leaves evolution not as a scientific theory but as an ad hoc exercise in storytelling. https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/05/the-real-problem-with-convergence/
And as Casey Luskin explained, "Convergent Evolution,,,Destroys the Logic Behind Common Ancestry"
Problem 7: Convergent Evolution Challenges Darwinism and Destroys the Logic Behind Common Ancestry - Casey Luskin February 9, 2015 Excerpt: Whenever evolutionary biologists are forced to appeal to convergent evolution, it reflects a breakdown in the main assumption, and an inability to fit the data to a treelike pattern. Examples of this abound in the literature,,,, Biochemist and Darwin-skeptic Fazale Rana reviewed the technical literature and documented over 100 reported cases of convergent genetic evolution.126 Each case shows an example where biological similarity -- even at the genetic level -- is not the result of inheritance from a common ancestor. So what does this do to the main assumption of tree-building that biological similarity implies inheritance from a common ancestor? With so many exceptions to the rule, one has to wonder if the rule itself holds merit.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/02/problem_7_conve091161.html
Widespread Convergent Evolution simply was not predicted, nor expected, under Darwinian presuppositions. As Günter Bechly explains,,,
Extinct Four-Eyed Monitor Lizard Busts Myth of a Congruent Nested Hierarchy - Günter Bechly - April 23, 2018 Excerpt: One of the most essential doctrines of Darwinian evolution, apart from universal common descent with modification, is the notion that complex similarities indicate homology are ordered in a congruent nested pattern that facilitates the hierarchical classification of life. When this pattern is disrupted by incongruent evidence, such conflicting evidence is readily explained away as homoplasies with ad hoc explanations like underlying apomorphies (parallelisms), secondary reductions, evolutionary convergences, long branch attraction, and incomplete lineage sorting. When I studied in the 1980s at the University of Tübingen, where the founder of phylogenetic systematics, Professor Willi Hennig, was teaching a first generation of cladists, we still all thought that such homoplasies are the exceptions to the rule, usually restricted to simple or poorly known characters. Since then the situation has profoundly changed. Homoplasy is now recognized as a ubiquitous phenomenon (e.g., eyes evolved 45 times independently, and bioluminiscence 27 times; hundreds of more examples can be found at Cambridge University’s “Map of Life” website). https://evolutionnews.org/2018/04/extinct-four-eyed-monitor-lizard-busts-myth-of-a-congruent-nested-hierarchy/
Thus, this Cambridge Lecturer has taken a piece of evidence, i.e. convergent evolution, that represented "a hard failure" for the theory of evolution, and turned it on its head, and now he is, of all things, calling convergent evolution proof that evolution must be a 'universal law', like gravity. This claim is so detached from the reality of the situation that it borders on being a delusional claim. As to finding a law of evolution, the only constant of evolution, i.e. universal law of evolution, that I can find anywhere in the universe is the unrestrained Darwinian 'law of imagination'. The 'universal law of imagination' of Darwinists which is., apparently, completely unrestrained by any real world and/or scientific considerations whatsoever. Wherever evolution is found to contradict a law of nature, the universal law of Darwinian imagination kicks in, in order to turn the contradictory evidence on its head and use it as somehow being proof of evolution. :) Moreover, aside from the imaginary law of evolution, according to the “one general law" that Darwin himself put forward for evolution,,
“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species – (1861), page 266
Moreover, according to the “one general law" that Darwin himself put forward for evolution, humans themselves should not even exist, much less should humans have become 'masters of the planet'.
“Speech is 95 percent plus of what lifts man above animal! Physically, man is a sad case. His teeth, including his incisors, which he calls eyeteeth, are baby-size and can barely penetrate the skin of a too-green apple. His claws can’t do anything but scratch him where he itches. His stringy-ligament body makes him a weakling compared to all the animals his size. Animals his size? In hand-to-paw, hand-to-claw, or hand-to-incisor combat, any animal his size would have him for lunch. Yet man owns or controls them all, every animal that exists, thanks to his superpower: speech.” —Tom Wolfe, in the introduction to his book
In other words, that humans should master the planet due to his unique ability to communicate information is completely contrary to the ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking that undergirds Darwinian thought. Although humans are fairly defenseless creatures in the wild compared to other creatures, such as lions, bears, sharks, etc.., nonetheless, humans have, completely contrary to Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking, managed to become masters of the planet, not by brute force, but simply by our unique ability to communicate information and also to, more specifically, infuse immaterial information into material substrates in order to create, i.e. intelligently design, objects that are extremely useful for our defense, basic survival in procuring food, furtherance of our knowledge, and also merely for our pleasure. This is simply completely inexplicable on Darwinian terms. As Dr. Egnor explains, as far mental abilities are concerned, "We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,,"
The Fundamental Difference Between Humans and Nonhuman Animals - Michael Egnor - November 5, 2015 Excerpt: Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals. Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different -- ontologically different -- from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,,, It is a radical difference -- an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference. We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/11/the_fundamental_2100661.html
Verses:
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
bornagain77
April 25, 2021
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With their reductive materialistic framework, Biological form is simply a complete mystery to Darwinists. As the following paper noted, "At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved."
On the problem of biological form - Marta Linde-Medina (2020) Excerpt: 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. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3
Darwinists simply have no empirical evidence whatsoever that, by mutating DNA alone, it is possible to change the basic biological form of any given organism into another basic biological form of another organism. As Dr.Jonathan Wells explains, "Studies using saturation mutagenesis in the embryos of fruit flies, roundworms, zebrafish and mice also provide evidence against the idea that DNA specifies the basic form of an organism. Biologists can mutate (and indeed have mutated) a fruit fly embryo in every possible way, and they have invariably observed only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly."
Jonathan Wells: Far from being all-powerful, DNA does not wholly determine biological form - March 31, 2014 Excerpt: Studies using saturation mutagenesis in the embryos of fruit flies, roundworms, zebrafish and mice also provide evidence against the idea that DNA specifies the basic form of an organism. Biologists can mutate (and indeed have mutated) a fruit fly embryo in every possible way, and they have invariably observed only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/jonathan-wells-far-from-being-all-powerful-dna-does-not-wholly-determine-biological-form/
Moreover, the failure of the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution to be able to explain the basic form of any particular organism occurs at a very low level. Much lower than DNA itself. In the following article entitled 'Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics', which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description."
Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics - December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, "We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s," added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. "So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description." http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html
In fact, in order to explain how an embryo achieves its basic biological form it is necessary to appeal to a beyond space and time cause. At about the 41:00 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Wells, using a branch of mathematics called category theory, demonstrates that, during embryological development, information must somehow be added to the developing embryo, ‘from the outside’, by some ‘non-material’ method.
Design Beyond DNA: A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Wells – video (41:00 minute mark) – January 2017 https://youtu.be/ASAaANVBoiE?t=2484
The amount of information coming into a developing embryo is by this 'non-material' method is immense. Vastly outstripping the amount of information contained within DNA. As the following video notes, the 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.
In a TED Talk, (the Question You May Not Ask,,, Where did the information come from?) - November 29, 2017 Excerpt: Sabatini is charming.,,, he deploys some memorable images. He points out that the 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. Later he wheels out the entire genome, in printed form, of a human being,,,,: [F]or the first time in history, this is the genome of a specific human, printed page-by-page, letter-by-letter: 262,000 pages of information, 450 kilograms.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/in-a-ted-talk-heres-the-question-you-may-not-ask/
Recent findings from quantum biology provide empirical support for the claim that a massive amount of 'positional information' must be coming into a embryo, by some 'non-material' method, during development in order to explain how an organism achieves its basic biological form:
Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg
Again, none of these findings are compatible with the reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian theory. Whereas Theism, on the other hand, expected these findings,
Psalm 139:13-14 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a] Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
bornagain77
April 25, 2021
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The first two paragraphs from the Quanta article read as such:
Why Extraterrestrial Life May Not Seem Entirely Alien - March 18, 2021 Excerpt: On the website for the department of zoology of the University of Cambridge, the page for Arik Kershenbaum lists his three main areas of research, one of which stands out from the others. Kershenbaum studies “Wolves & other canids,” “Dolphins & cetaceans” — and “Aliens.” Granted, science hasn’t yet found any aliens to study, but Kershenbaum says that there are certain things we can still say about them with reasonable certainty. Topping the list: They evolved. “The bottom line — why animals do the things that they do, why they are the things that they are — is because of evolution,” said Kershenbaum, a lecturer and director of studies in the natural sciences at the university’s Girton College. He argues that evolution is a universal law of nature, like gravity — and that studies of plants and animals here can therefore tell us something useful about potential inhabitants of worlds far beyond Earth. He finds evidence for this in the process of evolutionary convergence, in which unrelated lineages of organisms evolve similar features as adaptations to similar environmental challenges. https://www.quantamagazine.org/arik-kershenbaum-on-why-alien-life-may-be-like-life-on-earth-20210318/
There are a few problems with this Cambridge lecturer's speculations. Problem number 1: One of his own areas of study, i.e. “Dolphins & cetaceans”, throws a big monkey wrench into his entire notion that "They evolved."
Dolphin DNA very close to human, – 2010 Excerpt: They’re closer to us than cows, horses, or pigs, despite the fact that they live in the water.,,, “The extent of the genetic similarity came as a real surprise to us,” ,,, “Dolphins are marine mammals that swim in the ocean and it was astonishing to learn that we had more in common with the dolphin than with land mammals,” says geneticist Horst Hameister.,,, “We started looking at these and it became very obvious to us that every human chromosome had a corollary chromosome in the dolphin,” Busbee said. “We’ve found that the dolphin genome and the human genome basically are the same. It’s just that there’s a few chromosomal rearrangements that have changed the way the genetic material is put together.” http://www.reefrelieffounders.com/science/2010/10/21/articlesafari-dolphin-dna-very-close-to-human/ Kolber, J., 2010, Dolphin DNA very close to human, Kumar, S., 2010, Human genes closer to dolphin’s than any land animal, Discovery Channel Online, Richard Sternberg PhD – podcast – On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 2. (Major Differences in higher level chromosome spatial organization) 5:30 minute mark quote: “Basically the dolphin genome is almost wholly identical to the human genome,, yet no one would argue that bottle-nose dolphins are our sister species”,,, http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-2/
This 'anomaly' is not limited to Dolphins. For instance, Kangaroos also show the 'unexpected' pattern of being very genetically similar to humans
Kangaroo genes close to humans – 2008 Excerpt: Australia’s kangaroos are genetically similar to humans,,, “There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order,” ,,,”We thought they’d be completely scrambled, but they’re not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome,” http://www.reuters.com/article/science%20News/idUSTRE4AH1P020081118
In fact, all of life displays this pattern of 'unexpected' genetic similarity. And that unexpected' genetic similarity is what, in and of itself, throws a big monkey into Darwinian explanations. As James Le Fanu explains, "Contrary to all expectations, many DNA sequences involved in embryo development are remarkably similar across the vast spectrum of organismic complexity, from a millimeter-long worm to ourselves.7 There is, in short, nothing in the genomes of fly and man to explain why the fly should have six legs, a pair of wings, and a dot-sized brain and we should have two arms, two legs, and a mind capable of comprehending that overarching history of our universe."
Between Sapientia and Scientia — Michael Aeschliman’s Profound Interpretation -James Le Fanu - September 9, 2019 Excerpt: The ability to spell out the full sequence of genes should reveal, it was reasonable to assume, the distinctive genetic instructions that determine the diverse forms of the millions of species, so readily distinguishable one from the other. Biologists were thus understandably disconcerted to discover precisely the reverse to be the case. Contrary to all expectations, many DNA sequences involved in embryo development are remarkably similar across the vast spectrum of organismic complexity, from a millimeter-long worm to ourselves.7 There is, in short, nothing in the genomes of fly and man to explain why the fly should have six legs, a pair of wings, and a dot-sized brain and we should have two arms, two legs, and a mind capable of comprehending that overarching history of our universe. So we have moved in the very recent past from supposing we might know the principles of genetic inheritance to recognizing we have no realistic conception of what they might be. As Phillip Gell, professor of genetics at the University of Birmingham, observed, “This gap in our knowledge is not merely unbridged, but in principle unbridgeable and our ignorance will remain ineluctable.”8 https://evolutionnews.org/2019/09/between-sapientia-and-scientia-michael-aeschlimans-profound-interpretation/
In fact, where we find the greatest differences between humans, chimps, kangaroos, dolphins, etc.. etc.. is not in the DNA sequences but is in the ‘species-specific’ alternative splicing patterns between the different species. Alternative splicing patterns that dictate when and how genes are used in organism. As the following article states, “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,”
Evolution by Splicing – Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. – Ruth Williams – December 20, 2012 Excerpt: A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,, A commonly discussed mechanism was variable levels of gene expression, but both Blencowe and Chris Burge,,, found that gene expression is relatively conserved among species. On the other hand, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe.,,, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view%2FarticleNo%2F33782%2Ftitle%2FEvolution-by-Splicing%2F
In fact, “Alternatively spliced isoforms of proteins exhibit strikingly different interaction profiles and thus, in the context of global interactome networks, appear to behave as if encoded by distinct genes rather than as minor variants of each other.,,, and,,, As many as 100,000 distinct isoform transcripts could be produced from the 20,000 human protein-coding genes,, collectively leading to perhaps over a million distinct polypeptides obtained by post-translational modification.”
Widespread Expansion of Protein Interaction Capabilities by Alternative Splicing – 2016 In Brief Alternatively spliced isoforms of proteins exhibit strikingly different interaction profiles and thus, in the context of global interactome networks, appear to behave as if encoded by distinct genes rather than as minor variants of each other.,,, Page 806 excerpt: As many as 100,000 distinct isoform transcripts could be produced from the 20,000 human protein-coding genes (Pan et al., 2008), collectively leading to perhaps over a million distinct polypeptides obtained by post-translational modification of products of all possible transcript isoforms (Smith and Kelleher, 2013). http://iakouchevalab.ucsd.edu/publications/Yang_Cell_OMIM_2016.pdf
To say that the preceding findings present a problem for the gene-centric view of Darwinists is to make a severe understatement. This finding is a straight-up empirical falsification of their foundational gene-centric assumption.bornagain77
April 25, 2021
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Falk isn't using very much of his "highly evolved" imagination. Wings aren't the only way to fly. Nature invented blimps as well. Birds have controllable hot-air reservoirs tied to their lungs. Need more lift? Expand the blimp.polistra
April 24, 2021
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