Cambridge U tells SciTechDaily the story: “Evolving “Backward” – Discovery Overturns More Than a Century of Knowledge About the Origin of Modern Birds” (January 20, 2023):
A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht discovered that a crucial skull feature of modern birds, the mobile beak, had developed prior to the mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
This finding also suggests that the skulls of ostriches, emus and their relatives evolved ‘backward’, reverting to a more primitive condition after modern birds arose.
“Evolution doesn’t happen in a straight line,” said Field. “This fossil shows that the mobile beak – a condition we had always thought post-dated the origin of modern birds, actually evolved before modern birds existed. We’ve been completely backward in our assumptions of how the modern bird skull evolved for well over a century.”
Evolved “backward”? In other words, devolution? Funny, so few ever question a theory that is always being overturned by new findings.
Video showing the rotating pterygoid (a palate bone) of Janavis finalidens, which is very similar to that of living duck- and chicken-like birds. The bone was found as two matching fragments, which have been digitally fitted together. The bone is hollow and was likely full of air in life, as shown by the large opening on its side. Credit: Dr. Juan Benito and Dr. Daniel Field, University of Cambridge
Philip Cunningham points to these paragraphs from the PR:
The two groups were originally classified by Thomas Huxley, the British biologist known as ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ for his vocal support of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. In 1867, he divided all living birds into either the ‘ancient’ or ‘modern’ jaw groups. Huxley’s assumption was that the ‘ancient’ jaw configuration was the original condition for modern birds, with the ‘modern’ jaw arising later.
“This assumption has been taken as a given ever since,” said Dr. Daniel Field from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, the paper’s senior author. “The main reason this assumption has lasted is that we haven’t had any well-preserved fossil bird palates from the period when modern birds originated.”
Bulldogs, after all, are known for being stubborn, not for being on the right track.
It took a very longtime for science to finally correct that mistake
Follow the science………..
“Discovery Overturns More Than a Century of Knowledge”
If it can be overturned, it’s not Knowledge, it’s Belief.
Andrew
Every week there are press releases of articles that undermine prevailing Darwinian thought. I don’t think that there has ever been a theory that has proven to be more wrong. And, yet, the “true believers” refuse to let go.
They say: “There’s no other theory. Do you have a replacement theory?” Which means: “Even though I know I’m holding onto a piece of garbage, if I let go, then I’ll be ’empty-handed’! And we all know that that would be even worse.”
PaV at 3,
What would be even worse is Intelligent Design getting into schools. The true believers have an interest in promoting unguided evolution. This idea has to continue to be promoted because without it, ID could get into schools. People will connect the designer to God and atheists will have one less reason to be atheists.
And since ID will be taught, the average person will have scientific backing for his belief in God.
PaV
I wrote something very similar elsewhere …. And I also asked, what makes Darwinists so trustworthy? Because they seem to be always wrong ….
We should shut down the paleontology departments, so that we’re never troubled by anyone discovering something from the past that doesn’t mesh with what we believe about what was happening.
Martin_r at 5,
The National Academy of Sciences refers to evolution as the “cornerstone of Biology.” But, as you know, it can be excluded without causing problems for Biologists conducting research.
@pm1
I think you know the specific term for what you did on 6.
You obviously know no one really thinks of doing that. But there are two parties at fault here. There’s the party that absolutely denies anything science does (this is wrong) and there’s the party that absolutely adheres to science and this is part of a religion called scientism (also wrong).
The recent tribalistic aggressiveness for the vaccine, followed by follow. The science comes to mind is a good example of why you shouldn’t just follow the science.
And the issue is many things are taken at face value and implemented because they rely on science and think that it is immutable, and it has the final say about reality.
When systems, traditions and beliefs are over turned due to science, which later on proves to be faulty, it should serve as a lesson to exercise caution, and that the scientists are very fallible. Point in case the neuroscience of free will it took 40 years to finally correct the mistake that RP in the brain was the initiation of our action before we knew about it. Many aggressive, atheist/scientists misused that science to further their personal belief which turned into the norm. In 2012, Aaron Schruger punched the first hole through that ideology, and in 2019 he punched another hole the rest of they way effectively ending the Libet paradigm.
I think personally, both sides could benefit from exercising the tiniest bit of restraint before reaching outrageous conclusions based on science.
There is no such thing as “devolution,” regardless of what Michael Behe claims. Natural selection selects for successful phenotypes. That may result from “loss” of a previously successful adaptation. Natural selection does not move “forward” or “backward,” it’s simply selects for success.
CD @9
this debate is as absurd as the whole theory-of-evolution fairy tale …
It is clear, that this is just another head/beak/jaws design. Period.
Chuckdarwin,
Ignoring ChuckD’s fairly direct contradiction in logic, ChuckyD is not disagreeing with Michael Behe, (and John Sanford), per se,
ChuckyD is not disagreeing with Michael Behe, (and John Sanford), per se, ChuckyD is disagreeing with the scientific/empirical evidence itself. As Michael Behe, (and John Sanford) have made abundantly clear by reference to the empirical evidence itself, It is the scientific/empirical evidence itself that is saying that unguided material processes will tend to degrade the preexistent ‘immaterial’ information in biological systems that is ‘constraining’ biological systems to be so far out of thermodynamic equilibrium.
In fact, Darwinists simply have no empirical evidence that it is possible for unguided material processes to create the ‘immaterial’ information that is necessary to ‘constrain’ life to be so far put of thermodynamic equilibrium,
And without a ‘mechanism’ to create ‘immaterial’ information in biological systems, then it is obvious that any preexistent information in biological systems will tend to be degraded by unguided Darwinian processes. And that is exactly what we find. The vast majority of mutations are now known to be deleterious, not beneficial, in their effects.
So again, ChuckyD is not disagreeing with Michael Behe, (and John Sanford), per se, ChuckyD is disagreeing with the scientific/empirical evidence itself.
If ChuckyD wants to stay ‘scientific’, instead of being a dogmatist who is impervious to reason, he needs to present some sort of scientific evidence that it is possible for unguided material processes to create ‘immaterial’ information, because right now he simply doesn’t have any.
“Natural selection does not move “forward” or “backward,” it’s simply selects for success.”
CD,
Natural Selection is poetry. It’s two words placed next to each other. It’s not science. It’s not measurable or detectable. It doesn’t do anything.
Andrew
I think I’m just really confused about how the researchers are interpreting their discovery. They’ve shown that a mobile jaw evolved in birds much earlier than they had realized. But that doesn’t show that birds with fixed jaws evolved from birds with mobile jaws. For all anyone can know, there could be even older birds with fixed jaws that were contemporaneous with Janavis. Janavis is dated to about 66 million years ago, and there was already an avian adaptive radiation well underway by then.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see the evidence suggesting that extant paleognaths evolved from this extinct neognath. It could just as well be that both groups were flourishing before the end of the Cretaceous.
Nice try, BA77. As with most everything else, we’ve been down this road before. Loss of (or to be technically precise, non-expression of—the information is never truly “lost”) unnecessary information, if phenotypically adaptive, is not “devolution.” It is part of the engine that drives natural selection. To use a layman’s expression, unnecessary information is “excess baggage.”
IDers latch on to what they claim are novel notions about evolution for which biologists, paleontologists and other evolution researchers have no need. Things like “irreducible complexity,” “functional specificity,” “design inference,” “devolution,” “God hypothesis,” et al. and ride them into the ground. It’s as if simply saying something over and over makes it true. However, no one outside a small cabal of IDers is buying it……
@14 nice narrative. But I don’t think any of those IDers are buying it though despite you repeating yourself over and over again like a broken record.
Doesn’t really matter if IDers buy it or not nor would I ever be delusional enough to think my comments actually impact what IDers think. I’m simply want to make sure the record is straight…..
Then there is the Grants saying it takes 32 million years to get a new bird species and all the Darwinian finches are actually one species.
So Let’s Go Finches
@16 huh interesting comment. So you are aware your commentary has no impact on the “small cabal” of IDers but you wish to set things straight on a site that only this small cabal resides on. Got it…..
LOL, You tell em ChuckyD, forward, backward, sideways, it’s all to be considered evolution, there is never really ever any de-evolution. 🙂
Back in the real world, here are a few more pesky scientific facts for ChuckyD to overlook,
PM1 at 13,
Speculation is not knowledge. Evolution does not describe anything – it’s not science.
Evolution is fast except when it isn’t.
Evolution makes a lot of changes except when it doesn’t.
Evolution can go backwards if it feels like it.
Evolution explains nothing. Why? It’s not science. It exists primarily to give atheists the illusion that their dismissal of God is based on something scientific.
CD at 14,
And you fall under the “saying something over and over does not make it true” category also. You envision a ‘small cabal’ of IDers as if they were some secret society. You have no evidence for your claims. None that you can point to as empirical evidence. ID, on the other hand, has detected design and engineering in living things. It boils down to you not being willing or wanting to see design for yourself.
CD at 16,
We see you standing on the other side with your sign. For some strange reason, you simply haven’t given up on IDers.
Ba77,
So-called “extinction events” appear to be quite selective. Since there is evidence of large impacts on the Earth’s surface, it appears that the ‘lucky’ survivors were more than just lucky. How about a pine tree that went missing for millions of years until it was discovered alive? You can grow one if you want.
http://www.wollemipine.com/
ChuckDarwin @9,
Spoken like a true-blue Darwinist!
Yes, sightless cave fish aren’t actually losing something that evolved. No, they MUSTA always been evolving, thus their sightless eyes MIGHTA been evolving since then into some amazing *New Form* of night-vision!
Yeah, that’s it! And I’m sure you have the confidence (i.e. Faith) that in a million years, you’ll be able to say, “I TOLJA so!”
Note the invoking of the gods-of-the-gaps, MUSTA and MIGHTA.
-Q
Martin_r @5,
Exactly! That’s why Darwinism has greater similarity to religion than actual science.
Haha! Brilliant!
-Q
PyrrhoManiac1 @6
Oh, pooh. Sour grapes.
Paleontology should rather be set free from the cold, deal hands of Darwin clasped tightly around its throat. It should kick free from the nineteenth-century racist rationalization of white colonialism as is obvious from anyone who reads the full title of Darwin’s Origin of the Species or his subsequent book, The Descent of Man.
Have you ever actually read The Descent of Man?
I would sincerely hope that you wouldn’t choose to defend this horrid book.
-Q
Relatd @20,
Yep, exactly. Except, I’d change the “if it feels like it” to “randomly.” However, I do concede that the personification of evolution in “if it feels like it” is very common in evolutionary writing.
So true.
And I’d also point out that evolution can rationalize ANYTHING, but has not been successful in actually predicting anything. Darwinists are in a continual state of surprise.
Darwinists don’t know this, but there’s a term for a theory that fails to predict and is continually falsified.
I wonder whether ChuckDarwin knows this term. ChuckDarwin?
-Q
Querius at 27,
“Darwinists don’t know this…” Really? Those here present evolution as 100% true – always. I think they know. It does not matter how many times evolution is shot down here. Isn’t that obvious? Since the usual suspects reply to threads and start discussions as if no one here said anything to make evolution appear to be the bankrupt theory it is. Right?
@26
I’ve read most of The Origin of Species — I tried reading it all, but it really drags. I think I skipped the chapters on biogeography and embryology. I found it quite interesting in many respects, though I was struck by how colonization shaped his worldview: his favored examples of natural selection at work are cases of what we today would call invasive species.
Needless to say, I would not recommend it as a book about how one ought to understand evolutionary theory today — much as one would not read Newton’s Principia in order to learn physics.
I haven’t yet read The Descent of Man, though I do plan on it at some point. Maybe when I retire.
Pyrrhomaniac1 @29,
As reprehensible as it is, I think its important to read The Descent of Man to gain the philosophical worldview of philosophers, academia, the leaders of empires, the captains of industry, and policymakers of the 1870s onward.
Here’s a link where you can start reading it immediately:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Descent_of_Man_(Darwin)
It would be fascinating to hear your view of the book and its implications after you read it. I’ve no doubt that you will find it to be relevant to the Zeitgeist and context of “the Guilded Age.”
-Q
Querius
Your sightless cave fish example is odd because it illustrates my point re natural selection. Every organ system requires energy, generally in proportion to its level of sophistication. In humans, for example, even though the brain comprises a mere fraction of our total weight, it uses 20 to 40% of the energy necessary to maintain a uniform basal metabolism depending on immediate environmental conditions. It was not for nothing that your mother told you to wear a hat when it is cold outside.
In the real world of biology, every unnecessary organ or organ system saps energy that can be better used elsewhere. The visual system uses roughy 40% of the brain’s energy consumption.
The blind cave fish doesn’t need a visual system. It does, however, require a highly developed dorsal fin to detect water movement of prey. It also requires a much more sophisticated lateral line to also detect prey. These two organ systems work very well in tandem for a species who’s environment is devoid of light. A sophisticated visual system would be excess baggage. Natural selection, by jettisoning the visual system, has made the cave fish better adapted when one considers the relative energy cost of maintaining a useless visual system in total darkness.
Of humorous note:
On a more serious note, it seems that blind cavefish are ‘designed’ to go blind in one generation when exposed to the right environmental conditions, via epigenetic modifications.
To state the obvious, ‘environmentally triggered’ rapid epigenetic modification of an organism is contrary to Darwinian theory.
It appears that so-called “junk DNA” has a regulatory function. Not long ago, this part of DNA which does not code for proteins was labelled junk since it did not code for proteins, but it can turn things on or off to varying degrees.
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/10/butterfly-wing-patterns-emerge-ancient-junk-dna
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcell.2022.957292/full
Chuckdarwin @31,
Actually, I agree with you in part.
To use an example from Michael Behe (who studied the subject extensively), humans “evolved” a way to mitigate the horrible disease, malaria, by selecting for an otherwise deleterious mutation that produces sickle cell anemia in homozygous individuals, but mitigating malaria in heterozygous individuals. The direction of this “evolution” is toward loss of function, not gain of function.
In the cave fish example, I was prepared to assert, that disabling mutations in their eyes, were slightly beneficial, in that they would be less susceptible to infection from mechanical injury and this is not a new feature but a degradation of an existing one. BUT . . .
Bornagain77 @33 points out something I didn’t know, namely that the eyesight in cavefish is under epigenetic control over the expression or inhibition of the HSP90 gene! This is the same mechanism that regulates the variation in the beaks of Darwin’s finches in a single generation.
Wow! The obvious question is by what process did HSP90 in cave fish come under epigentic control?
Do you think ALL fish have their eyesight expression under epigentic control?
-Q
Relatd @34,
Thank you for the links.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for Darwinists to ASSUME that what we now call non-coding DNA as “junk,” was it?
Sadly, many Darwists still grimly insist that much or most DNA is junk.
-Q
A comment I made 17 years ago relevant to non coding DNA
It has always been the case that junk DNA is somewhere between 0 and 100% of non-coding DNA The question is how much? And for those species where the number is above 0, does it have a purpose. Maybe the purpose has nothing to do with the survivability of the specific species.
Querius/35
This is where I opine that Behe is mistaken:
Either an adaptation is functional or it’s un-useful and unnecessary—it’s not loss vs. gain. Moreover, like I said before, the genetic information is never lost, it is simply not expressed. An organism’s genome is fixed. However, the relevant adaptation remains available for expression if the organism’s environment changes dramatically enough, thus the (relatively) fast inter-generational emergence of previously unexpressed characteristics, e.g., your Galapagos finches. It’s really not that difficult to understand……
Chuckdarwin at 31,
Besides ChuckyD being shown to be wrong in his claim that ‘natural selection’ jettisoned the visual system cave fish because of ‘relative energy costs’, (see post 33), ChuckyD’s overall claim that natural selection will tend to select between ‘relative energy costs’ and ‘jettison’ the organism that uses more energy, is also antithetical to the overall Darwinian claim that complex, multicellular, sexually reproducing, organisms could have possibly evolved from ‘simple’, unicellular, asexually reproducing, organisms.
Namely, sexual reproduction requires exponentially more energy than asexual reproduction.
So the elephant in the living room question is, (given ChuckyD’s claim that natural selection will ‘jettison’ organisms that use more energy), “How is it possible for natural selection to select for sexual reproduction when is requires exponentially more energy than asexual reproduction?
To give us a glimpse of just how antithetical sexual reproduction is to overall Darwinian claims, the following article is very illuminating,
In other words, since successful reproduction is all that really matters on a neo-Darwinian view of things, how can anything other than successful, and highly efficient, asexual reproduction, be realistically ‘selected’ for? Much slower, highly inefficient, sexual reproduction, (as ChuckyD himself inadvertently admitted), simply makes no sense on a Darwinian view of things.
Any other function besides successful, highly efficient, asexual reproduction, such as much slower sexual reproduction, sight, hearing, thinking, morally noble and/or altruistic behavior, etc… etc.. would all be highly superfluous to the primary criteria of successful reproduction, and should, on a Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ view, be discarded, and/or ‘eaten’, by bacteria, as so much excess ‘energy expending’ baggage since it would obviously slow down the primary criteria of highly efficient asexual reproduction.
Spiegelman’s Monster is an excellent empirical example of natural selection ‘jettisoning’ inefficient reproduction,
Likewise, the genetic diversity of humans is found to have been substantially reduced, and even substantially compromised, from the original population of humans, via Darwinian processes.
Likewise, the genetic diversity of dogs has also been substantially reduced, and/or substantially compromised, from the original wolf population.
Michael Behe has many more similar examples of Darwinian processes reducing, and/or compromising, genetic information in his book “Darwin Devolves”.
So thus in conclusion, ChuckyD may claim, and/or imagine, that ‘de-evolution’ does not exist in the real world, but the fact of the matter is that ChuckyD’s very own claim that natural selection will ‘jettison’ organisms that use more energy is, in fact, born out in the empirical evidence and shows that natural selection, and Darwinian processes in general, will overwhelmingly tend to reduce energy costs, and/or genetic information. In short, and to quote Behe, it is now empirically shown that “Darwin Devolves”, it does not, and cannot, create.
i.e. Whatever ChuckyD is doing in making his easily refuted claims, he is certainly not ‘doing science’. i.e. He is NOT following the evidence where it leads.
Quote and verse
Querius at 36,
At the time, “junk DNA” was regarded as leftovers from our incredibly long evolution. Apparently, DNA was smart enough to switch off unused genetic material but it could not discard it. Imagine that. DNA just sat around one day and said, to itself, “What am I going to do with all this old stuff?”
Of course, the Biologists who made that uh… determination were 100% wrong.
Ba77,
I am amazed that a few posters here assign to ‘evolution’ some level of intelligence. It is apparent that the genetic code has built-in switches that express or hold back certain functions. Bacteria use Horizontal Gene Transfer to exchange genetic material between each other when needed. This ability existed BEFORE they were exposed to a harmful substance. It was built-in.
Relatd @34,
Geneticist Susumu Ohno originated the term in his 1972 paper, “So Much ‘Junk DNA’ in our Genome”. It’s worth reading. At the end of his paper, he makes some excellent conjectures regarding what was then a complete mystery.
But just as it was once thought that “vestigial organs” were leftover junk from evolution (including ductless glands such as the thyroid), so too is the concept of vestigial DNA. In both cases, the assumption of evolutionary junk hindered the progress of science. However, an ID approach would have accelerated the progress of science in both cases and is obviously more pragmatic.
Generally, epigenetic processes (such as methyl groups attaching to DNA) control gene expression. Non-coding DNA is being discovered to have a variety of functions.
So, just as the thyroid is now known to have an important function, so too is “junk” DNA, despite the ideological prejudice of Darwinists who are still clinging to a failed racist theory from the age of wooden ships, colonialism, and slavery.
-Q
Querius at 43,
I wouldn’t point to the past anymore, just the present and ongoing research that shows more and more layers of complexity. The levels of interoperability between various parts of the genome, like a computer program, are slowly, and I’m confident, more rapidly in the next few years, becoming apparent. Again, in a few years, Darwinists will melt away like snow and disappear as if they never existed – including here. Now that the Human Genome has been fully sequenced, scientists are working as fast as possible to make money… followed by advancing human knowledge in general. Various diseases have already been identified as being related to malfunctions in Junk DNA. For example, various molecular switches control cell functions. Like a factory, the cell requires raw materials and the switches make sure that precise amounts of various chemicals get to the right places. But, unlike a light switch that is just on and off, some switches are on a timer to allow enough time for the travel of the needed chemical to its destination. A malfunction can result in disease. Figuring out how to correct malfunctions will mean billions of dollars for pharmaceutical companies.
Meanwhile, Darwinists still want to believe that humans are the end result of unguided events. That the Human Genome is so complex by accident. That is no longer a credible position to hold.
Relatd @44,
Yes, exactly. And not to mention all the other genomes. Darwinists always seem to be astonished by the unexpected complexity and surprises that were not anticipated by their failed theory. They would prefer to erase the history of their repeated failures, which is why I like to remind them of these failures.
Remember chapters in your biology book with titles such as “The Simple Cell” and that they were composed primarily of “protoplasm,” a sort of living jello? It was all so simple and Science had all the answers, unlike ignorant bronze-age goat herders.
How life originated was also simple. It started with the 1952 Miller-Urey experiment that produced life–well, almost did–under conditions on the early earth, which they weren’t. And that these then formed into coacervates that evolved into chihuahuas through random genetic drift, which they didn’t.
But, the science was settled then and the rest was just a little cleanup.
Except none of it was true.
-Q
Chuckdarwin @38,
Do you even know how sickle cell anemia works?
By what process did HSP90 in cave fish come under epigentic control?
Do you think ALL fish have their eyesight expression under epigentic control?
-Q
Querius,
The cave fish switching between eyes/no eyes is just another example of how Darwinists misinterpreted reality …. And another example of engineering masterpiece where energy is being saved …. Because eyes consume lots of energy ….
Martin_r @47,
Funny, but generally the things I’ve seen written often follow the line, “and that new functions for junk DNA that are emerging is yet another proof of Darwin’s theory of evolution.”
Apparently, junk DNA has been evolving at an amazing pace since it was first noted in 1970 when it originally was 100% junk! 😉
-Q
The rationalizations for Darwinism sorta remind me of the old joke about two farmers bragging to each other.
Farmer 1: “And my farm is so large, it takes me all day just to drive around it!”
Framer 2: “Yeah, I had a car like that once.”
-Q
Martin_r,
From another post, you’d mentioned microproteins, which were new to me . . .
“New universe of miniproteins is upending cell biology and genetics”
https://www.science.org/content/article/new-universe-miniproteins-upending-cell-biology-and-genetics
An excerpt from the link recognizes what turned out to be a long-held false assumption of “junk DNA.”
Thus, once again, the assumption of something unknown in stretches of DNA and RNA as random junk slowed scientific progress and discovery. An ID approach would once again have found its utility faster.
-Q
Querius/46
Sickle cell is an evolutionary trade-off. I served in the Peace Corps for two years in southern Africa in an active malarial (plasmodium) area. Given that the life span of folks (mid-1970s) was 30 to 40 years, the immunity which sickle cell provided vis a vis average life span, made the trade-off an overall benefit. If you have ever observed someone in the final stages of untreated malaria, the cost-benefit of sickle cell is obvious. So, to say that sickle cell is “devolution” can be very misleading.
As to your other issue, I don’t get into discussions on epigenetics because (1) it is not well understood and is still under intense debate and (2) I don’t have a good understanding of it…….
Chuckdarwin @51
A cost-benefit to human suffering?
• Malaria is a horrible disease AND sickle cell anemia (SCD) is a horrible genetic defect. In 2020, life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa was about 61.
• Malaria kills about a half million people in Sub-Saharan Africa every year, mostly children.
• The homozygous sickle cell disease (SCD) results in frequent episodes of extreme pain followed by death by about age 38 in men and 42 in women.
• Even the heterozygous sickle cell trait (SCT) is dangerous for people who are athletes or put their bodies under stress. But the sickle cell defect does effectively interfere with the malarial parasites ability to infect red blood cells, thus more people reach reproductive age and unfortunately the defect is selected for and spreads.
There’s some good news. Research with the CXCR4 protein inhibitor, which is already being used for treating blood cancers, also interferes with the malarial parasite life cycle:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190612092938.htm
No it isn’t. A genetic defect interferes with or destroys a normal function in the body.
What you’re trying to assert is that a person born blind is the “evolution of sightlessness,” or that someone born without legs is actually “evolving” into new animal. Baloney.
Or do you think that research on genetic defects should be halted because it’s actually “evolution” in action?
As Bornagain77 mentioned regarding blind cave fish, the gene responsible is under epigenetic control, which is very interesting!
Here’s a Ted Ed talk on the basics of our current understanding of epigenetics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aAhcNjmvhc
Also note that there’s no such thing as “the science is settled.” Anyone who makes such a claim is a lawyer or a bureaucrat, not a scientist or researcher. All science is continually subject to debate, experimentation, refinement, falsification, and replacement.
-Q
Querius/52
Now you are simply being obtuse and gratuitously satirical. One person born blind, as the result of an anomaly, isn’t an example of “the evolution of blindness.” But you already knew that. And, of course no one is suggesting that we throw our hands up and stop looking for cures for disease or genetic “defects.” We are constantly developing the means to fix evolution’s imperfect results — a form of evolution itself.
Unlike your omnipotent God that had (and blew) the opportunity to create perfect organisms to live in a perfect world, free of disease and death, natural selection is messier. The proverbial “making sausage” metaphor comes to mind. Less than ideal cost-benefit trade-offs are part and parcel of evolution. As Nathan Lents pointed out four years ago, calling it “devolution” adds nothing to the conversation…..
https://thehumanevolutionblog.com/2019/02/19/devolution-not-a-thing/
You referenced Nathan Lents? Really??? Can you say ‘self-refuting theological argument’?
also see;
ChuckDarwin just endorsed ID.
He equates evolution with genetics. An ID position.
Let’s go Finches.
But then he reverts to stupidity
Chuck, this is
the best of all possible worlds.
The argument from evil proves it. Or should I say, the argument from unwanted instances.
Aside: there are birds here in the Caribbean as we pass nearby Kf. Can the thread get back on topic?
Aside2: Chuck is up early in the Rockies.
CD
“Unlike your omnipotent God that had (and blew) the opportunity to create perfect organisms to live in a perfect world, free of disease and death, natural selection is messier“
Yeah it’s called heaven you dingus ya know that thing you don’t believe in….
CD at 53,
You and Seversky must hang out a lot. Railing against God because He is just another man, or maybe He has some abilities but is not very good at making decisions?
“Unlike your omnipotent God that had (and blew) the opportunity to create perfect organisms to live in a perfect world, free of disease and death, …”
You judge God but don’t believe in Him? Not rational. Don’t judge a being you don’t/aren’t sure exists. OK?
A little Theology 101. God could have made perfect robots that obeyed every command. He did not. He created beings who were perfect and in a direct relationship with Him. They were given what are called preternatural gifts, including immortality. God asked them to follow ONE commandment. They had free will. God gave them the ability to choose. THEY blew it, not God. Even though God knew they would disobey in advance, He did not tell them.
So what happened to man and Creation?
Romans 5:12
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—”
You, yes you, and all men have Original Sin and you are subject to death.
Romans 8:19
“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”
20
“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope”
21
“that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
22
“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”
23
“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”
So Creation was corrupted. The first man and woman left Eden. They were cast out for their disobedience. But Jesus Christ came and died as a sacrifice for all so that we, by repenting and turning to Him as Lord and Savior, can attain eternal life with Him and all those in Heaven.
No disease, no pain, no suffering. No tears, anymore.
You can summarize your God of Christianity in one passage from Relatd’s post:
You really can’t get much more dishonestly cynical than that…..
CD at 58,
I know the Bible is foolishness to you. The true nature of God is unknown to you. It appears the only God you know is the version you rail against.
Chuckdarwin @53,
Your resorting to an ad hominem attack means I’ve won the argument! Yay!
Oh, good! Do you know that every generation of humans increases humanity’s genetic load by about 100-150 deleterious mutations? If evolution created complex features, it should be able to maintain them, right?
But it doesn’t, so we’re now trying to address some mutations using gene editing:
So Layla, as many children, was doomed to die from evolutionary change for the worse, de-evolving a gene that provided a critical function, the lack of which initiated her leukemia.
Fortunately for Layla, intelligently guided gene editing restored her to health from evolution’s “imperfect results!” I just hope the scientific community continues to approve saving children’s lives, despite “ethical concerns.”
But I’m not sure how an intelligent agent using TALENs to edit a defective gene in Layla is “a form of evolution itself,” as you put it. How is it not Intelligent Design since it’s not random mutation plus natural selection? Layla would have been selected to die, right?
I’m not sure why you’re bringing God into this discussion about bird evolution. Not only is natural selection “messier,” as you put it, but it seems like ALL the random mutations are deleterious and many lead to death.
Would you agree with my high school biology teacher that it’s because evolution, after billions of years, has pretty much perfected all life on earth, so there’s no where to go but down?
-Q
CD,
An excellent analysis.
However, there is a small problem … you people (Darwinists) misinterpret the reality over and over again.
Natural selection DID NOTHING. Natural selection is a conjecture …
It is clear, that this fish can switch on/off the development of its eyes. A designed feature. It has nothing to do with natural selection, it has nothing to do with Darwinism. It is pure engineering … these eyes can be switched on/off with our without your “natural selection”.
IT WILL BE DONE THE SAME WAY ANYTIME IT IS NEEDED. DO YOU GET IT CHUCKDARWIN ? :)))))))
PS1: by the way, you people (Darwinists) were WRONG again. First you have published a paper, claiming, that random mutations caused the blindness — so it fits your absurd theory (including natural selection nonsense). To your credit, later, after years, you have figured out, and confirmed the design — an epigenetic switch/gene regulation switched off eyes development. You people are always wrong …
PS2: the same with cichlid fish — “Comparative analyses showed that stripes are present in one third of East African cichlid species and evolved many times independently with stripes having been gained ~70 times and having been lost again ~30 times.” This fish gets these stripes over and over again, with or without your “natural selection’ … because it was designed that way …. WHEN YOU PEOPLE WILL FINALLY GET IT ????
“WHEN YOU PEOPLE WILL FINALLY GET IT ????”
They will do anything except acknowledge what exists.
Andrew
CD,
here you go, from a mainstream paper, ScienceDaily (2018)
an engineered/ designed feature. PERIOD.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180529132019.htm
Martin_r @63,
Thanks for the excellent link! However, think I understand why Chuckdarwin doesn’t want to discuss epigenetics. I think the problem stems from the fact that some genes are permanent and others seem to be designed to switch on and off, or even be enhanced.
For Darwinists, it raises too many questions that evoke the necessity of additional intervention by their gods-of-the-gaps, MUSTA and MIGHTA.
For example, why are only some genes switchable and others permanent?
It sounds like epigenetic switches are essential to cell differentiation, which sounds like they’re needed for non-colonial, multicellular organisms:
These attachments to DNA, are complex and beg explanation from Darwinist fundamentalists:
Should these be investigated as if they were designed or assumed to be random junk, some of which happen to work?
-Q
Querius,
yeah … I have noticed your previous conversation with CD :)))))
I completely agree with you … CD perfectly understands what the existence of epigenetics means … he perfectly understands :))))) These guys perfectly understand, they just can’t admit that their religion is falling apart … it hurts …
The same with the OoL-research. Some of these researchers spent 40 years on this project and completely failed. We can’t expect that these people will admit anything …
Recently a video was published, an interview with Eric Metaxas and James Tour.
Here is the best part, Dr. Tour sums it up:
https://youtu.be/9qxoH7u3FXw?t=3170
Martin _r
This is from the abstract of the Science Daily you linked:
I was challenging Behe’s “devolution” claims. The above report has nothing to do with Behe’s devolution idea. The report distinguishes between epigenetic regulation and genetic mutation. Behe’s devolution idea deals with the latter. At least according to this study, epigenetic regulation does not change the genome but rather, regulates select portions of the genome. Important is that no genetic information is lost or destroyed, which, again, Behe claims that said loss is a hallmark of devolution.
Martin_r @65,
Great segment by Dr. Tour, thanks!
Here’s a segment by Dr. Behe in which he looks at how malaria evades drugs by a single mutation versus two mutations.
https://youtu.be/rc00AESiegg?t=2
Incidentally, Dr. Behe’s doctoral dissertation was on sickle cell disease. Dr. Behe makes a distinction between creating a new gene and breaking an existing one.
-Q
Querius
“Dr. Behe makes a distinction between creating a new gene and breaking an existing one.”
I would certainly hope so. A wise scholar once noted that the average doctoral thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from one grave to another.
Since you’ve already unilaterally declared victory, I’m going to move on………
Ciao
Chuckdarwin @68,
Oh, good. And that’s precisely the difference between evolution and de-evolution. The former creates a gene, the latter breaks one. Thank you.
Actually, in 1943 “The Saturday Evening Post” published an article titled “Maverick Professor” about University of Texas English Professor J. Frank Dobie who specialized in folklore and rural Texas. A quote attributed to the professor included, “I early learned, that a Ph.D. thesis consists of transferring bones from one graveyard to another.”
Unfortunately, I can’t take any credit for the observation that people who resort to ad hominem attacks have conceded defeat in a debate. But I don’t blame you for running away in the face of epigenetic evidence against Darwinian evolution. It’s pretty devastating.
I’m sure we’ll see you in another topic for a fresh start.
-Q
CD,
I get that.
I was reacting to your cave-fish-blindness-natural selection claim. Once again, natural selection and Darwinian theory of evolution has nothing to do with cave fish blindness.
CD,
as with the cave fish, the same misinterpretation with another icon of evolution Peppered moth.
You people misinterpret the reality over and over again, and then you infest the whole world with this misinterpretation … so it fits your absurd theory …
These species like Peppered moths were engineered to change color. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR “NATURAL SELECTION” CONJECTURE. A pepper moth can change its color whenever it wants to …
Get this:
100 species changed color to dark at the same time ? :))))))))))
Seriously, do you people (Darwinists) believe in miracles ?
Natural selection ? :))))))))))
You people completely misinterpreted what was going on …
It is clear that these species were engineered to change the color …
Does anyone see the irony that ChuckDarwin always agrees with ID when he mentions something that’s factual?
Martin_r @70,
Exactly. How does random mutation choose methylation or whatever epigentic suppression of blindness in cave fish, where sight can be enabled or disabled in a single generation? This is a freaking miracle at our current level of understanding, not “yet another example proving Darwinism.”
Martin_r @71,
Yeah, I once believed this about the peppered moth until I found out the explanation was contrived. Reminds me that the same type of people who invent pseudo-Christian urban myths such as NASA determining that there was a day missing in history are also responsible for pseudo-scientific urban myths such as the peppered moth. Both are dishonest and despicable for making up stuff.
Because it’s just GOTTA be true . . . basically, they’re not committed following the scientific method. This makes the racist theory of Darwinism a secular religion.
Thank you for the link, Martin_r, I learned something new.
-Q