Why were two-thirds of the tuskless babies females? “They also suspected that the relevant gene was dominant – meaning that a female needs only one altered gene to become tuskless — and that when passed to male embryos, it may short-circuit their development.”
Tag: devolution
Reptiles evolved, de-evolved, re-evolved teeth
In short, when researchers actually looked at reptile tooth history, it was hardly a simple evolution tale at all. It seems as if there are plans that life forms can access, perhaps within their genomes. But how do they trigger the needed changes, as opposed to just going extinct?
Devolution: Earlier yeast splicosome was more complex
Isn’t it the case that a great deal of (lights and fanfare!) evolution we hear about is turning out to be devolution?
Michael Behe on extreme devolution: “Gnawing off a leg”
Behe: Like tusks to elephants, the proteins are presumably useful to the parasite, other things being equal. But when the environment changes and the proteins become a net drawback, the quickest evolutionary solution is to get rid of them. That’s an interesting fact of biology and can be medically important. However, it’s important to note that it’s just one more example of devolution — the beneficial loss of genetic information.
Comb jellies, among the oldest life forms, lost rather than gained complexity
Throwing a horseshoe into the works of Darwinism, many life forms simply reduce their complexity in order to survive. Yes, natural selection works and is real but — because it depends on randomness — it doesn’t produce reliably complexity all by itself any more than winning a lottery ticket reliably produces wealth.
At New Scientist: Ancient comb jelly more complex than its modern relatives?
Well, it’s a good thing for “evolutionary theory” that it doesn’t “preclude” life forms becoming “simpler over geological time.” That’s called devolution and it is in fact very common.
Grand Darwinian experiment with 10,000 generations of yeast proves that Mike Behe is right
If the authors could have predicted adaptation through loss-of-function mutations, why didn’t they let high school textbook authors and pop science presenters in on the secret?: Michael Behe is right: Darwin devolves. Evolution is mostly about devolution. Does that maybe make sense in a universe where entropy is growing? But where does it leave Darwin? At the bus stop after the last bus has left?
Some thoughts from a reader on Behe’s vindication at Lehigh
Remember, these same authors wrote a scathing review of Darwin Devolves in the journal Evolution. Now, somehow, they must hold their position of opposing Darwin Devolves, while presenting compelling evidence to support Darwin Devolves. Quite a conundrum!
Behe vindicated (still not cited) at his own LeHigh University
One might ask: If things go downhill that way and “directionality and progress in evolution may be illusory,” what is the source of intelligent designs? An intelligence in or beyond nature? We’ll take either as an answer, to start a discussion.
Mistletoe differs from all other cellular life in having largely lost the ability to produce fuel
At Quanta: “In the few years since botanists discovered this anomaly, scientists worldwide have tried with no more than limited success to figure out how mistletoes pull off this trick …”
An animal has been discovered that does not need oxygen to live
Devolution, of which this is an example, may be more common than we suppose and will probably have precisely the effect of creating “exceptions” like this. Note that we are told, “they likely steal energy from their host using some type of proteins.” It makes sense that many devolved creatures are parasites. They can afford to throw away equipment if they are using the host’s toolbox anyway.
Mike Behe’s Darwin Devolves thesis aired at Quanta?
The thesis of Darwin Devolves is that most adaptation/evolution is due to loss of genes (devolution). The Quanta article seems to agree that loss of genes is a major means of the development of life.
Devolution: The “surprising” gene costs of the carnivorous lifestyle to plants
Researchers: “To their surprise, the researchers discovered that the plants do not need a particularly large number of genes for carnivory. Instead, the three species studied are actually among the most gene-poor plants known. ” Yes, because – as Mike Behe says – Darwin Devolves.
Michael Behe on how the new Lenski paper demonstrates a key problem with Darwinism
Behe: Let me emphasize: the only result from the decades-long, 50,000-plus generation E. coli evolution experiment that even seemed at first blush like it had a bit of potential to yield a novel pathway in the bacterium has resulted instead in spectacular devolution.
A striking admission that Michael Behe was right
What he is saying is precisely Behe’s point in Darwin Devolves. Cell evolution is mostly about destroying complex equipment that hinders immediate survival. (The question of how the equipment came to be so complex beforehand is separate from the question of what life forms actually do when they evolve.)