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If traits can jump between the branches of the tree of life, classical Darwinism is dead

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And yet that’s what they are saying:

We all must play the game of life with the cards we’re dealt, so the common aphorism goes. In biology, this means organisms must compete through natural selection with the genes and anatomy they were born with. But the saying is a lie. Okay, it’s not exactly a lie, but modern research suggests that the game of life is far more complicated than we had anticipated. There are opportunities to swap cards and even steal other players’ hands. …

Examples of acquired metabolisms abound in nature. Some are familiar, like the microbes in a cow’s gut that enable it to digest cellulose. Others are more common but less well-known. For instance, consider the symbiotic fungi that help plants source minerals from the soil. And then there are truly unusual acquired metabolisms, like sea slugs that steal chloroplasts from their food so they can photosynthesize.

University of California – Santa Barbara, “What happens when traits jump between branches of the tree of life” at ScienceDaily (May 3, 2022)

It’s called horizontal gene transfer.

The paper requires a fee or subscription.

Comments
So what's the difference between functional Nihilism and Existentialism? -QQuerius
May 8, 2022
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re 52: that is atrocious.Viola Lee
May 7, 2022
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https://rumble.com/v13t33l-leftist-teachers-going-after-your-children.htmlLieutenant Commander Data
May 7, 2022
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Sure, you can find people who present the views you don't like. My point is that those don't apply to the very vast majority of everyday people. But we can't prove that, and you guy's stereotypical prejudices are extreme, so I won't bother saying anymore. I've been enlightened enough! :-)Viola Lee
May 7, 2022
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LCD
The left is full of nihilists that live only with short memory “goals” fed by their hidden puppeteers (tasty bones: racism ,BLM, feminism , what now when men are women? ? , children groomed as young as possible, climate change, vaxx, war,abortion nazi, etc…
Agreed. It's all personal-interests trying to fill the huge gap of meaninglessness. It's just basic Darwinism really.Silver Asiatic
May 7, 2022
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AS
I haven’t done a scientific study, but I suspect that a lot of people are Functional Nihilists.
I agree. It just means there is no ultimate meaning, purpose or goal for life. We came from nothing and end with nothing. It's just basic atheism, which a lot of people proclaim these days - they just don't use the term nihilism, but that's what it all is. It's just nothing but matter and energy - no meaning, morality, purpose.Silver Asiatic
May 7, 2022
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VL
And how many nihilists do you know? ... You are tilting at a philosophical windmill that doesn’t really exist in real people.
I paraphrase you in return - that's a gross misunderstanding. Here's a brief article that explains:
Darwinism, the Meaninglessness of Life, and of Death https://evolutionnews.org/2016/04/darwinism_the_m/ Coyne is by no means alone in claiming Darwinism, with its insistence that all organisms have arisen through chance events (mutations) without plan or purpose, leads logically to the position that human life has no meaning or purpose. In my book The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life, I provide many examples of evolutionary biologists and other intellectuals who argue Darwinism sweeps away the benighted notion that human life has meaning. In a video on YouTube, University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne states that science has demonstrated that the universe and life are pointless….Pointless in the sense that there is no externally imposed purpose or point in the universe. As atheists this is something that is manifestly true to us. We make our own meaning and purpose. Duke University philosophy professor Alex Rosenberg shows the same inconsistency. He co-authored an article in 2003, “Darwin’s Nihilistic Idea: Evolution and the Meaninglessness of Life,” in which he dismissed morality as an illusion. However, Rosenberg assured us that we have nothing to fear, because nihilism has no effect on our behavior, since “Most of us just couldn’t persistently be mean, even if we tried.” Rosenberg needs to take some of my history courses — or just read the news — if he doesn’t think many people could be mean to each other.
Rosenberg's book is "The Atheist's Guide to Reality". Some clips from user reviews (people agree with his nihilism): -- We can’t avoid the persistent questions about the meaning of life?and the nature of reality. But science is the only means of answering them. -- Alex Rosenberg in his book makes it clear that atheism is not an option but the only reasonable explanation of the universe. -- In The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, Alex Rosenberg asserts that modern science has ended the debate for all time. “The basic things everything is made up of,” writes Rosenberg, “are fermions and bosons…that’s it” (p. 21). Physics tells us what reality is and there is nothing more. -- The scientist view of reality requires abandoning common notions of purpose, self, morality, immortality. -- Absolutely fantastic book. And Dr. Rosenberg called me back when I called his office to discuss. He really is a nice nihilist! -- If Rosenberg is correct: 1-There are no free will (nor literal moral responsability for our actions) and therefore "anything goes". 2-There are no objective moral values nor duties, because physics doesn't know of any "moral" dimension to physical matter. 3-There are no any reason at all to be "moral". 4-History has no meaning nor purpose and we cannot learn anything of it. 5-Love has not moral nor spiritual dimension beyond being exclusively the biologial "solution to a strategic interaction problem". What other thing could "love" be according to physics and biology? 6-We're here just in virtue of dumb luck. There is no purpose at all for the universe's existence, no to our existence. 7-When we die, everything will continue as before... except us. These claims are explicitly asserted in pages 2 and 3 of the book, and defended in the whole book. Throughout the entire book and with an easy to understand narrative style of writing, the author wondrously shows that science is our exclusive guide to reality, that physics is the whole truth about reality, and that the physical facts fix all the facts. -- The worst part of this book is the subtitle. Rosenberg provides us with an excellent atheist's guide to reality, but he doesn't help us enjoy life without illusions. Rosenberg doesn't deal effectively with the emotional impact that some of these truths can have. This is the one thing that existentialist philosophers understood that contemporary analytic philosophers don't. Reality is depressing. Rosenberg's solution? Rosenberg's only tip to enjoying life without illusions? Prozac. This answer is so unsatisfying that I'm apt to believe it's a joke. To be fair to Rosenberg, the problem of how to deal with reality is difficult, but I think he should have avoided the issue raised by the subtitle completely. (P.S. I haven't tried Prozac, but I've tried numerous other antidepressants including talk therapy. They haven't helped in the slightest with my existential dread.) -- It's the hard cold truth, even harder than I thought. -- Rosenberg persents himself as the intrepid philosopher following his premises to their logical conclusions, further even than fellow-travellers in atheism such as Dawkins and Dennett. For Rosenberg the premise is "scientism", that the world described by physics is all that there is. Literally. Everything else is an illusion: meaning, consciousness, free will, right and wrong. He has no truck with Dennett's idea that moral philosophy is making progress towards an absolute morality. And unlike Dawkins, he does not see the scientistic world view as offering a substitute for religion --- it is just the way things are and if we want to be intellectually honest we have to accept it. -- Story-telling is the greatest enemy of rationality, as Rosenberg argues, and he dismisses all meaning as an illusion or a metaphor. Silver Asiatic
May 7, 2022
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"Regarding Nihilism, I don’t think a lot of people identify as such." I haven't done a scientific study, but I suspect that a lot of people are Functional Nihilists. They just don't know they are because they don't know philosophy or related jargon. Andrewasauber
May 7, 2022
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Viola Lee And how many nihilists do you know? I know absolutely no one who is a nihilist and most of the people I know would probably be classified as liberal Christians or humanists. Not one is a nihilist. You are tilting at a philosophical windmill that doesn’t really exist in real people.
:lol: Wow where do you live? The left is full of nihilists that live only with short memory "goals" fed by their hidden puppeteers (tasty bones: racism ,BLM, feminism , what now when men are women? :) , children groomed as young as possible, climate change, vaxx, war,abortion nazi, etc...Lieutenant Commander Data
May 7, 2022
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Let’s avoid the 2000 lb gorilla in the room and maybe we can get 200 redundant comments.jerry
May 7, 2022
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Regarding Nihilism, I don't think a lot of people identify as such. They just get seriously depressed and some even commit suicide in high school. This is very sad and those culpable never take responsibility. They just suggest counselling and drugs. Also consider existentialism. One definition reads as follows:
Existentialism Existentialism is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on the subjective experience of thinking, feeling, and acting. For example, in the view of an existentialist, the individual's starting point has been called "the existential angst", a sense of dread, disorientation, confusion, or anxiety in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.
In contrast, The Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the believers in Galatia . . .
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 (ESV)
And this has been my own personal experience. Although one certainly needs have the wisdom to avoid the frauds, charlatans, abusive institutions and relationships, and power and money schemes endemic to all human activities. -QQuerius
May 7, 2022
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Silver Asiatic @36, Yeah. In fact, my objection to Darwin's theory is not on theological grounds, but that it's simply lousy science. If anything, the assumption of randomly generated features, some of which might be not selected against, has functioned to slow scientific progress by assuming that some organs and nearly all DNA are leftover junk without any function. "Following the science" has a dark side. It involves eugenics, forced sterilization, brutalization of indigenous people, and environmental harm (Kaibab plateau intervention, introduction of pest control species into the Hawaiian Islands, and culling thousands of elephants under the mistaken belief that they were harming the local ecosystem). In the past, there were scientists who once advocated detonating nuclear explosions at the poles to combat "global cooling" and the possible onset of a new ice age. Glad we didn't "follow the science" then? Shouldn't we also credit science for the introduction of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons? An accident with such weapons can wipe out nearly all life on earth. Woohoo! Here's a charming book on the various nuclear accidents and how the U.S. nearly nuked itself on a couple of occasions: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-Mountains/dp/1605986801/ The book is absolutely hair raising! Plus you'll learn about a technique called "tickling the dragon," which killed a number of nuclear scientists. -QQuerius
May 7, 2022
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"You are tilting at a philosophical windmill that doesn’t really exist in real people." VL, This is obviously false. Andrewasauber
May 7, 2022
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And how many nihilists do you know? I know absolutely no one who is a nihilist and most of the people I know would probably be classified as liberal Christians or humanists. Not one is a nihilist. You are tilting at a philosophical windmill that doesn't really exist in real people.Viola Lee
May 7, 2022
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VL
I think there are very few nihilists
The nihilist says that you came from nothing significant and you will end the same. There's no life after this one and therefore all you do and all you love and all you live for are simply gone. They end with nothing. There's nothing to hope for because nothing matters. What kind of hope can you give people? It will all end with nothing. There is no final justice for those who have been wronged. Why should anyone care? What is there to hope for?Silver Asiatic
May 7, 2022
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"the dichotomous idea that things are either white or black" Some things are. The idea that things are never white or black is a dichotomous idea. Andrewasauber
May 7, 2022
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Darwinian theory is at the root of our culture today and people don’t realize how destructive it is.
Let's agree tests must exist so that nobody can contest(like in a court of law)the place where will be sent after death.Lieutenant Commander Data
May 7, 2022
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SA writes,
Darwinian theory is at the root of our culture today and people don’t realize how destructive it is. Dehumanizing nihilism makes people hopeless – or they think science will solve every problem and that just creates fear and turmoil.
I've been using this phrase: I think those are both gross mischaracterizations. I think there are very few nihilists and who because of that who feel hopeless and I think there are very few "scienticism-ists" who think science will solve every problem. I just think there are lots of people who don't share your religious or political views, and that you project these false negative perceptions on the world because of the dichotomous idea that things are either white or black. My 2 cents from watching the discussions here.Viola Lee
May 7, 2022
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Nobody I know cares about evolution at all. I bring it up once in a while and the conversation goes nowhere. Most of these people are God-believers of some kind and they just think evolution is a certain, scientific truth and no intelligent person could question it. But they also know nothing about evolution and care nothing about it since it has zero importance in their life (as they see it). If they had to talk about Dawkins, they just think of him as an extreme atheist and they laugh him off. But they'll think his science is 100% correct. Anybody who questions evolution is a Bible fundamentalist, so they'll start talking about Bible stories. Darwinian theory is at the root of our culture today and people don't realize how destructive it is. Dehumanizing nihilism makes people hopeless - or they think science will solve every problem and that just creates fear and turmoil.Silver Asiatic
May 7, 2022
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Then don't pay attention to them. Their materialism is a metaphysical overlay on top of a scientific description. Seeing God as present in natural processes is also a metaphysical overlay, but it one's choice as to which metaphysics one wishes to adopt in one'e life.Viola Lee
May 7, 2022
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@ 32 My first out came when I started to study microbiology and saw the complexity of both DNA and the actual cell @ 33 Exactly my point throughout all of school I never ever doubted my faith or evolution until people like Dawkins and Dennet started moving their mouths. Poisoning the well is a perfect way of describing it. Because there was no conflict in my mind until they brought that conflict to meAaronS1978
May 7, 2022
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re 31 to Aaron. You write, "Moreover it could just be called a system of adaptation that was built into the organisms by the creator." Actually I think that is what a lot of people believe, but the prominent materialists such as Dawkins have "poisoned the well" so to speak. But lots of people here at UD disagree with you, as they seem to be very much against religious people who accept evolutionary theory. Here's a quote from the book "The Species Seekers" on this subject, from about the time Darwin wrote "The Origin of Species"
Even before publication, the clergyman, naturalist, and novelist Charles Kingsley already saw that evolutionary thinking and religious faith were separate and capable of coexisting: ... I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that he created primal forms capable of self development into all forms needful…as to believe that he required a fresh act of intervention” to fill every gap caused by the natural processes “he himself had made. I question whether the former be not the loftier thought.” It might be better, that is, to believe in a God who promulgated laws and let them take their natural course, than to believe in a God obliged, as Buffon had put it, to busy himself about “the way a beetle’s wing should fold.
Viola Lee
May 7, 2022
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AaronS1978 @31, My doubts about evolution started in high school when I noticed that biology and geology each used the other for dating purposes and to reconcile odd strata. I also read about trans-strata fossil trees that supposedly stood in place upright for millions of years while many layers formed around them. Not very likely. In college, I recognized that abiogenesis exemplified by von Helmot's famous spontaneous generation of mice experiment, where he left dirty rags with some bits of food in a corner for a few weeks, was remarkably similar to one in which one leaves a dirty earth with some bits of food for a few billion years, resulting in the spontaneous generation of life. In that biology class, I was also exposed to a number of chemical cycles including the ADP-ATP cycle, which didn't seem very simple to me. Also, single celled organisms were recognized as a vast and complex organic cities of fantastic complexity! I believe it was at that time, I suggested that it was far more likely that gut bacteria evolved humans and animals simply as exoskeletons for improved survival considering their vastly higher rates of reproduction (and resulting evolution). After that, I gave up the old idea except as maybe a fine-tuning mechanism at best. -QQuerius
May 6, 2022
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You know I’ve been thinking about this evolution wouldn’t even be that bad if certain religious atheists didn’t use it to try to slay God or replace God If the general expectation wasn’t this Richard Dawkins style version of Darwinism standard evolution would be just fine with this Moreover it could just be called a system of adaptation that was built into the organisms by the creator Instead we got some asshole who claimed that evolution makes you intellectually fulfilled And another one that says evolution is a corrosive acid that the roads tradition and leaves revolution It’s crap like that that makes me hate the concept of evolution, it’s the simps for itAaronS1978
May 6, 2022
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Yep! And this is what the $10 m prize in @28 is all about. -QQuerius
May 5, 2022
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In order for traits to jump between the branches of the tree of life, they have to originate somewhere - somehow. THAT was what Darwin was trying to explain! But it looks like we're back to square one! Whether or not random mutation is capable of this or not is a HUGE question!tjguy
May 5, 2022
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According to his book, Evolution 2.0, Perry Marshall claims there are five, maybe six ways that a genome can change. The weakest one is random mutation. 1. Transposition 2. Horizontal gene transfer 3. Epigenetics 4. Symbiogenesis 5. Genome duplication 6. Random mutation (maybe rarely) He's offered a $10,000,000 US prize to anyone who can replicate cellular evolution. Details here: https://www.herox.com/evolution2.0 -QQuerius
May 5, 2022
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you are saying that major changes such as with body plan or speciation are not encoded in the genes, but are somehow activated in some other way?
That seems likely. I suggest you read Stephen Blume.
That is, after a cell starts to grow in a specific individual, some other force other directs aspects of its growth?
My guess is some code somewhere. That’s speculation. Meyer describes possible codes in the cell wall. But as of now no one knows anything about such a process. They have been fixated on DNA.
But you are saying that genes, but something else, plays a major role in development. is that what you are saying?
Yes. It’s speculation based on the needed size to control everything. Each cell has to be placed in a very specific location. The genome doesn’t seem large enough for that. There should be research on this and I guess there is. If there is research I am not aware of it. There’s so much going on. It would be on simple species at first. Some have said it’s in the supposedly junk DNA but human junk DNA varies greatly from other species. Each species’ offspring is primarily identical except for variations in the genome. How does something so precise happen. Somebody will piece it together some day. It will not redeem Darwin. What is happening is incredibly complicated. Darwin’s basic processes which are not unique to him (except - natural selection) are not powerful enough to create the information necessary.
there is a distinction between where the information comes from and where it is embodied
Yes. Unknown where the information comes from. But there is lots of speculation on that too. You have been reading this site. Aside: I’m leaving for California early in the morning so may not respond much. Still packing.jerry
May 5, 2022
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Jerry Both Darwin’s and Mendel’s ideas led somewhere and thus relevant. In fact #1 is absolutely right on. So the comment about what Darwin knew is Irrelevant!
:) What knew Darwin that animal breeders didn't know for thousand of years before Darwin ? In the years 1960-1970 after genetic code was discovered darwinism should have disappeared but that would have been too much for the establishment that built their careers on falsehood of darwinism , written thousands of books . Their image would have been ...not very pleasant for the public. So they printed same fake arguments for evolution in school books and brainwashed generation after generation till today. Today is worse epigenetic inheritance add more complexity over already complex genome, proteome, glycome.Sandy
May 5, 2022
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So, Jerry, you are saying that major changes such as with body plan or speciation are not encoded in the genes, but are somehow activated in some other way? That is, after a cell starts to grow in a specific individual, some other force other directs aspects of its growth? Also, it seems to me there is a distinction between where the information comes from and where it is embodied: intelligence changes the genes and then the genes produces different creature. But you are saying that genes, but something else, plays a major role in development. is that what you are saying?Viola Lee
May 5, 2022
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