Horizontal gene transfer from frogs to snakes via parasites?

_{Denyse O'Leary

April 26, 2022

horizontal gene transfer, Intelligent Design}

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So everyone now accepts that non-Darwinian evolution is no longer a thing?:

Horizontal DNA transfer, once thought to be a rare event, has occurred between snakes and frogs at least 54 times in the past 85 million years
Many snakes make meals of frogs, but some appear to be transferring their DNA into the amphibians as well. A genetic analysis suggests that parasites shared between snakes and frogs may facilitate the movement of genetic material from one species to another.
Jake Buehler, “Frogs have acquired DNA from snakes with the help of parasites” at New Scientist (April 26, 2022)

This destroys all those heavily constricted Darwin stories about species’ evolution.

The article requires a fee or subscription.

Horizontal gene transfer: Sorry, Darwin, it’s not your evolution any more.

Comments

We have another equivocator in our midst:
Which begs the question as to why HGT is repeatedly brought up as an argument against evolution.
Please, learn how to read for comprehension. HGT isn't an argument against mere evolution but evolution by means of blind and mindless processes.ET_{April 28, 2022
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even the cave man who designed the first axe out of wood and rock was an engineer, he wasn’t a scientist
It’s a chicken and egg issue. What’s science but experience repeated. Observing that certain rocks can be used to cut things may have led to the understanding of separating other things like other peoples heads with certain rocks one found laying about. This may have led to using these rocks in a more efficient way. But this has nothing to do with HGT. The bloviators have not yet arrived.jerry_{April 28, 2022
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seversky @19
Once you have this knowledge – which comes from science – then engineers or scientist-engineers can design and build a light microscope.
so isn't it what i said ? :))))) Without engineers, no science. You can have lots of theories, hypothesis, but without an engineer your knowledge is useless. you need tools and technology made by engineers to prove of falsify your theories/hypothesis ... why is it so hard to comprehend ? Wherever you look, you see the work of engineers... not scientists ... engineers made everything what you see around you ... so simple is that ... PS: even the cave man who designed the first axe out of wood and rock was an engineer, he wasn't a scientist ...martin_r_{April 28, 2022
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So, living life is a scientific endeavor, then. Trial and error is a way to solve problems. If solving problems = science then people practice science on a daily basis. And Richard Feynman would agree. The bottom line is engineers work with the information they and others like them, gather.ET_{April 27, 2022
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Agree.
Which begs the question as to why HGT is repeatedly brought up as an argument against evolution. It has long been known as a source of heritable traits. The only question remaining is what is the relative contribution of HGT to increased variation.JHolo_{April 27, 2022
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Just to reiterate, Darwinian change of which HGT is part has nothing to do with Evolution. To suggest it does is inaccuratejerry_{April 27, 2022
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Jerry: Just to reiterate, HGT has been part of Darwinian change for years. To suggest this is new is inaccurate. Agree.JVL_{April 27, 2022
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Just to reiterate, HGT has been part of Darwinian change for years. To suggest this is new is inaccurate.jerry_{April 27, 2022
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In order to build a light microscope you must first know that we see the world around us through the medium of what we call light we call light. You must also know that the path light takes can change when passing from one medium to another - say, when it passes from air into water or from air into glass - in other words, refraction. You must know that this can be controlled by the use of suitably-shaped and positioned glass lenses. You must know that an image can be magnified by by the right shape and arrangement of glass lenses. Once you have this knowledge - which comes from science - then engineers or scientist-engineers can design and build a light microscope. And once you have light microscopes, then scientists can begin to study the phenomena of the microscopic world revealed by the device. It was not engineers who theorized the existence of the quantum world. It was not an engineer who proposed a particle - completely unknown up to this point and undetectable to human senses - to explain a discrepancy between theory and observations, although it was engineers who eventually built detectors that could record the occasional flash of Cherenkov radiation that was emitted when a neutrino interacted with the water in the detector. But those detectors would not have been built without knowledge from particle physics.Seversky_{April 27, 2022
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EvilSnack: HGT will be just another way that small changes can enter the germ line. I would not be surprised if they were already advancing this argument. They already have encompassed that process of variation being introduced into the breeding stock. As one would expect of serious scientists who are interested in keeping up with the data and results.JVL_{April 27, 2022
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Martin_r: now I don’t know, i am only a stupid engineer and creationist, but it looks like you do confirm what i claimed above… I think it depends on what era you are talking about. I know from talking with my father that many engineering projects he worked on were initially driven by new research results or thoughts. BUT the actual implementation of those ideas did come down to engineers being able to fulfil the theoretical promise.JVL_{April 27, 2022
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I'm pretty sure that the Darwinists have a way to recover from the argument that HGT disproves the current model of evolution. The original argument is that evolution (both micro- and macro-) is the accumulated result of small changes. I don't recall Darwin arguing that the changes had to come about by any particular means. The paradigm that they come from spontaneous mutation of the DNA is a modern development consequent of the discovery of genetic coding; it is not a hill that Darwinists have to die on. They can simply walk back the specifics of how the changes came to be, because the Beard did not make any claim in this regard, and they can definitely claim that HGT is a small change. HGT will be just another way that small changes can enter the germ line. I would not be surprised if they were already advancing this argument. This of course kicks the can down the road; in order for the gene to be transferred horizontally, it must first come into being. At the end of the day, HGT is a distraction from the central question of the debate: Can the transition from non-living matter to the array of life now in existence be explained on the basis of undirected means? All we have seen so far from the affirming side is assertions based on a priori assumptions and affirmations of the consequent.EvilSnack_{April 27, 2022
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JVL
For someone like Newton he had to be his own engineer when he was testing some of his ideas
now I don’t know, i am only a stupid engineer and creationist, but it looks like you do confirm what i claimed above...martin_r_{April 27, 2022
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Asauber: …is a design technique. We were talking about humans building stuff so, yes. In that case. Natural processes can do something similar in that different variants come into existence and those that are 'better' in some way create more offspring and become more prevalent. It's a kind of trial-and-error but without the intelligence which can quicken the process BUT which also favours variation which might not be better in terms of survival. There is a notion that sexual selection unconsciously goes for healthier variation but I think there are examples where that is clearly not the case.JVL_{April 27, 2022
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"trial-and-error" ...is a design technique. Andrewasauber_{April 27, 2022
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ET: So basic engineering is science? That refutes what seversky was saying. Maybe. Or maybe it's just a different interpretation? Does it matter? Anyway, it's pretty clear how the Egyptians used trial-and-error when learning how to build the Pyramids at Giza. Whether you call their accumulation of knowledge 'science' is an academic questions which doesn't change what actually happened. And, for many, many, many years that's how knowledge of construction techniques progressed: trial-and-error. Nowadays, sometimes the pure research science precedes the engineering.JVL_{April 27, 2022
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JVL:
There is a clear history, in Egypt (not sure about Central America) of a series of experiments where the Egyptians modified and extended their designs to see how high and big they could go. So, as usual, trial and error otherwise known as experimentation informed their constructions.
So basic engineering is science? That refutes what seversky was saying.ET_{April 27, 2022
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Martin_r: Without engineers, there won’t be any science…. even the simplest light microscope had to be designed by an engineer … every single thing you use every day including lab tools had to be designed by engineers …. I think, now, it's a bit of a combination. As a son of a mechanical engineer (who worked on some nuclear fusion projects) a modern engineer has to keep up with the new results and experiments but also be willing (and hopefully paid) to experiment and try different things. The research science can point in various directions but it's the engineer that actually makes it happen. For someone like Newton he had to be his own engineer when he was testing some of his ideas; the ones that weren't based on pure observation and deduction that is. (No one could 'experiment' with planetary orbits to come up with the 'theory' of gravity.)JVL_{April 27, 2022
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Seversky @5
Engineers can only work with the information gathered by science.
Will you finally tell us what is your education ? Because... it is exactly the other way around ... Without engineers, there won’t be any science.... even the simplest light microscope had to be designed by an engineer ... every single thing you use every day including lab tools had to be designed by engineers .... You are completely wrong ... again ...martin_r_{April 27, 2022
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ET: Tell us of the science that aided the Egyptian engineers. Tell us of the science that aided the Mayans. Or just admit that you talk from your bottom. There is a clear history, in Egypt (not sure about Central America) of a series of experiments where the Egyptians modified and extended their designs to see how high and big they could go. So, as usual, trial and error otherwise known as experimentation informed their constructions.JVL_{April 27, 2022
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seversky:
Engineers can only work with the information gathered by science.
Tell us of the science that aided the Egyptian engineers. Tell us of the science that aided the Mayans. Or just admit that you talk from your bottom.ET_{April 27, 2022
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HGT is just one source of the engines of variation for Darwinian change in genetics. It is entirely consistent with Darwin’s ideas. Because it affects DNA it has nothing to do with Evolution. Allen MacNeill, I believe is still alive but retired from Cornell and in his 70’s. He has not commented here in years. Here is an article he wrote on HGT for his blog which still stands though not current. http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2009/01/horizontal-gene-transfer-and.html Also from UD years ago a discussion of HGT. https://uncommondescent.com/biology/the-tree-of-life-is-being-politely-buried/jerry_{April 27, 2022
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Engineers can only work with the information gathered by science. The build on the work of others.Seversky_{April 27, 2022
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ET And mutations can’t even produce eukaryotes from given populations of prokaryotes
:) It's a bigger informational difference between prokaryotes and eukaryotes than between chemicals and prokaryotes. Only engineers(who are inventors) should be allowed to talk about biology because only they understand what type of engineering requires a cell .Sandy_{April 27, 2022
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This destroys all those heavily constricted Darwin stories about species’ evolution. Why?es58_{April 26, 2022
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There isn't any scientific theory of evolution. And mutations can't even produce eukaryotes from given populations of prokaryotes.ET_{April 26, 2022
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Horizontal DNA transfer, once thought to be a rare event, has occurred between snakes and frogs at least 54 times in the past 85 million years
54 examples in 85 million years? Each of us has around 60 mutations that didn’t exist in either parent. And that is in a single generation, not 85 million generations (assuming a generation for snakes and frogs is one year). So it seems that mutations are still by far the greatest source of genetic change.
This destroys all those heavily constricted Darwin stories about species’ evolution.
Not really. Evolution involves natural selection acting on heritable traits. For it to be a viable theory there must be a source of variation. HGT may contribute an extremely small amount of heritable but it still confirms to evolutionary theory.JHolo_{April 26, 2022
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