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Researchers: Body plan evolution not so simple as once thought

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Body plan evolution not as simple as once believed
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Left side: Drosophila yakuba male fruit fly, right side is a Drosophila santomea male /Eden Wellesley McQueen

The Hox genes are not the big answer many thought:

The role of Hox genes in changing the layout of different body parts during evolution has been challenged by a study led by researchers out of the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Biological Sciences.

Hox genes are vital to developing differences in repeated body parts such as vertebrae, limbs, or digits in most animal species, including human beings. Ever since their discovery, scientists have thought that modifications to Hox genes could be the primary way that the animal body plan has been altered during evolution.

The paper, “Changes throughout a genetic network masks the contribution of Hox gene evolution,” discusses experiments that pinpoint evolutionary changes in a Hox gene, but found that several other genes had evolved alongside it to generate a difference in pigmentation along the fruit fly body plan. The paper was published in Current Biology June 27. “Body plan evolution not as simple as once believed” at University of Pittsburgh

So Hox isn’t the magic Darwinfix after all. all these genes are coordinating their work, almost like the unrolling of a plan. Maybe exactly like the unrolling of a plan.

Paper. (open access)

See also: genomic: Hoxparadox described (2011)

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Comments
almost like the unrolling of a plan
"Plan" is not a good word for them.Silver Asiatic
July 10, 2019
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A lot of modern genetic determinism comes from the concept of twin studies and similarities being genetic and the difference is also being genetic in someway shape or form However whenever these things are pulled into question and tested by molecular geneticist they never panned out ever It is only science media journalists and people like Nancy Seagal who make these remarkable claims but when a molecular geneticist looks at these things they never find the claims to be true My favorite was the recent drop with the poly genic score showing a failure two genetically track height in Europe This is not been the first time there is a recent study on 23 and me and ancestry.com they’re really good at predicting the general area of your families origins and traits, but when it comes to specifics both tests were very different from one another and all over the place because they used different genetic databases with different scores And what keeps happening is when you get all the data together biologically interesting spikes have a tendency to disappear the so-called gene for this and this so called gene for that I think a course that I took in genetic influence from many years ago back in 2010 still holds true today and I remember going over a lot of predictions that they made in that class about the interplay of environment and genetics and almost all of those predictions came true Yet on the exact same token people still push genetic determinism and biological determinism trying to re-define what it is and overstate their influences It’s frustrating and sometimes nerve racking But nothing is more irritating when you hear such claims like parenting doesn’t matter as much as we thought because genetically your child is going to be a certain way Even Richard dawkins criticizes this frame of thinking Worse yet is the comment isn’t as important as we originally thought Of course parenting your child is incredibly important probably one of the most important things you can do But when they say that comment they imply that it’s not important at all in genetics are the main factor In reality it’s just another part of the puzzle all of it contributesAaronS1978
July 10, 2019
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as to the final sentence in the article:
"It takes all sorts of genes working together to generate these phenotypes," said Mark Rebeiz, an associate professor of evolutionary development who was a lead author on the paper.
Indeed the finding that "It takes all sorts of genes working together to generate these phenotypes" is yet another falsification of the modern synthesis and/or Dawkin's 'selfish gene' concept. First, here are few other falsifications of the modern synthesis and/or Dawkin's 'selfish gene' concept.
,, In the following video, Dr Denis Noble states that around 1900 there was the integration of Mendelian (discrete) inheritance with evolutionary theory, and about the same time Weismann established what was called the Weismann barrier, which is the idea that germ cells and their genetic materials are not in anyway influenced by the organism itself or by the environment. And then about 40 years later, circa 1940, a variety of people, Julian Huxley, R.A. Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, and Sewell Wright, put things together to call it ‘The Modern Synthesis’. So what exactly is the ‘The Modern Synthesis’? It is sometimes called neo-Darwinism, and it was popularized in the book by Richard Dawkins, ‘The Selfish Gene’ in 1976. It’s main assumptions are, first of all, is that it is a gene centered view of natural selection. The process of evolution can therefore be characterized entirely by what is happening to the genome. It would be a process in which there would be accumulation of random mutations, followed by selection. (Now an important point to make here is that if that process is genuinely random, then there is nothing that physiology, or physiologists, can say about that process. That is a very important point.) The second aspect of neo-Darwinism was the impossibility of acquired characteristics (mis-called “Larmarckism”). And there is a very important distinction in Dawkins’ book ‘The Selfish Gene’ between the replicator, that is the genes, and the vehicle that carries the replicator, that is the organism or phenotype. And of course that idea was not only buttressed and supported by the Weissman barrier idea, but later on by the ‘Central Dogma’ of molecular biology. Then Dr. Nobel pauses to emphasize his point and states “All these rules have been broken!”. Professor Denis Noble is President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences. - Denis Noble - Rocking the foundations of biology - video http://www.voicesfromoxford.org/video/physiology-and-the-revolution-in-evolutionary-biology/184
Dawkins’ ‘selfish gene’ concept is more of less directly based on Darwin’s own ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking about competition. Yet genes, as the article in the OP highlighted, are now found to be anything but selfish. Instead of being ‘selfish’, genes are now found to be existing in a holistic web of mutual interdependence and cooperation (the antithesis of selfishness).
What If (Almost) Every Gene Affects (Almost) Everything? – JUN 16, 2017 Excerpt: If you told a modern geneticist that a complex trait—whether a physical characteristic like height or weight, or the risk of a disease like cancer or schizophrenia—was the work of just 15 genes, they’d probably laugh. It’s now thought that such traits are the work of thousands of genetic variants, working in concert. The vast majority of them have only tiny effects, but together, they can dramatically shape our bodies and our health. They’re weak individually, but powerful en masse. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/its-like-all-connected-man/530532/ Theory Suggests That All Genes Affect Every Complex Trait – June 20, 2018 Excerpt: Mutations of a single gene are behind sickle cell anemia, for instance, and mutations in another are behind cystic fibrosis. But unfortunately for those who like things simple, these conditions are the exceptions. The roots of many traits, from how tall you are to your susceptibility to schizophrenia, are far more tangled. In fact, they may be so complex that almost the entire genome may be involved in some way,,, One very early genetic mapping study in 1999 suggested that “a large number of loci (perhaps > than 15)” might contribute to autism risk, recalled Jonathan Pritchard, now a geneticist at Stanford University. “That’s a lot!” he remembered thinking when the paper came out. Over the years, however, what scientists might consider “a lot” in this context has quietly inflated. Last June, Pritchard and his Stanford colleagues Evan Boyle and Yang Li (now at the University of Chicago) published a paper about this in Cell that immediately sparked controversy, although it also had many people nodding in cautious agreement. The authors described what they called the “omnigenic” model of complex traits. Drawing on GWAS analyses of three diseases, they concluded that in the cell types that are relevant to a disease, it appears that not 15, not 100, but essentially all genes contribute to the condition. The authors suggested that for some traits, “multiple” loci could mean more than 100,000. https://www.quantamagazine.org/omnigenic-model-suggests-that-all-genes-affect-every-complex-trait-20180620/ Gene Pleiotropy Roadblocks Evolution by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. – Dec. 8, 2016 Excerpt: Before the advent of modern molecular biology, scientists defined a gene as a single unit of inheritance. If a gene was found to influence multiple externally visible traits, it was said to be pleiotropic—a term first used in 1910.2 During this early period of genetic discovery, pleiotropy was considered to be quite rare because scientists assumed most genes only possessed a single function—a simplistic idea that remained popular throughout most of the 20th century. However, as our understanding of genetics grew through DNA science, it became clear that genes operate in complex interconnected networks. Furthermore, individual genes produce multiple variants of end products with different effects through a variety of intricate mechanisms.2,3 Taken together, these discoveries show that pleiotropy is a common feature of nearly every gene.,,, The pleiotropy evolution problem is widely known among secular geneticists, but rarely discussed in the popular media. In this new research report, the authors state, “Many studies have provided evidence for the ability of pleiotropy to constrain gene evolution.”,,, “Our study provided supportive evidence that pleiotropy constraints the evolution of transcription factors (Tfs).”,,, The authors state, “We showed that highly pleiotropic genes are more likely to be associated with a disease phenotype.”,,, http://www.icr.org/article/9747
Such ‘holistic cooperation’ is, as should be needless to say, the exact polar opposite of being ‘selfish’ as Dawkins had envisioned with his ‘selfish gene’ concept. (And should, if Darwinism were a normal science instead of being basically a religion for atheists, count as yet another direct falsification of the theory). Although Darwinists had placed great hope that Hox genes would someday provide them with a line of evidence that could help explain the body plan development of various organisms, the fact of the matter is that Darwinists, with advances in quantum biology, are now shown, with their reductive materialistic framework, to not even be on the correct theoretical foundation in order to be able to properly understand molecular biology in the first place:
Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg
Biological form simply is not reducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinists
Darwinism vs Biological Form - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNzNPgjM4w
Moreover, this failure of the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution to be able to explain the body plan of any particular organism occurs at a very low level, much lower than DNA itself (or any other material particulars that Darwinists may wish to invoke to explain body plans). 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
Simply put, the ‘bottom up’ reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution is found to be grossly inadequate for explaining how any particular organism might achieve its basic form. Moreover, to state what should be glaringly obvious, since neo-Darwinian explanations are grossly inadequate for explaining how any particular organism might achieve its basic form, then neo-Darwinian speculations for how one type of organism might transform into another type of organism are based on pure fantasy and have no discernible experimental basis in reality. Whereas, on the other hand, Theism, especially with these recent breakthroughs in quantum biology,,,
How Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Correlate (27:15 minute mark – how quantum information theory relates to molecular biology) https://youtu.be/4f0hL3Nrdas?t=1635
,,,whereas Theism is found to be very well supported in its claim that God has formed each of us in our mother’s womb.
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
As well, besides quantum information providing direct empirical falsification of neo-Darwinian claims that say immaterial information is emergent from some material basis, the implication of finding 'non-local', beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication, of course, being the fact that we now have direct physical evidence strongly indicating that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff notes in this following video, “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.”
Leading Scientists Say Consciousness Cannot Die It Goes Back To The Universe - Oct. 19, 2017 - Spiritual Excerpt: “Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” - Stuart Hameroff - Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - video (5:00 minute mark) https://www.disclose.tv/leading-scientists-say-consciousness-cannot-die-it-goes-back-to-the-universe-315604
Verse:
Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?
bornagain77
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