Humans cause yeast to become multicellular, a threat to ID?

[Stu]

It's basic Confirmation Bias... and I wish people would more readily admit to it happening. It's the reason I cringe when people call themselves 'open-minded' or 'skeptical'. Everyone is both of those things for their own beliefs, and neither of those things (usually) for anything else. Naturalist, Christian, etc; doesn't seem to matter for a lot of people, though there are definitely those who get better at avoiding it.

So true. I always wonder why certain folk refer to themselves as "skeptics". By definition the word implies suspicion; but from what I've experienced their interpretation of the label is in fact "skeptic of views holding to anything other than materialist conclusions". In other words: evolution and a chance universe are true, and we're skeptical of anything that says otherwise

I watched a video of a Skeptics Convention hosted by PZ Myers once -- I swear I've never seen a group of more unquestioning minds, it's like they were in a secularist church and PZ was the apastor; with cheers and laughter at jokes and insults (called stupid, etc.) directed at the ID folk who raised questions.

It usually even goes beyond expecting certain conclusions. It includes only taking in information that is supportive of one's own claim. That's why it bothered me that there was a dispute over listening to the claims of a Christian group in regards to this experiment on the basis of 'format'. My natural tendency is just to assume Confirmation Bias, which might be a rush to judgment, but usually ends up being involved in people's decisions anyway.

Format, I thought it was an objection to length the length of the clip.

[MarcusOfLycia]

Format, I thought it was an objection to length the length of the clip.

I guess it was both.

[sandy_mcd]

I guess it was both.

Yep, it was both format and time.

[DRDS]

Rich posted a article on this:

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/ ... ution.html

[Stu]

Rich posted a article on this:

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/ ... ution.html

Yeah, perhaps someone should copy and paste Rich's article here, makes for an interesting read...

Conclusion:
Scientists from the University of Minnesota want us to believe that multicellularity, which took billions of years to appear on earth, can evolve in a few days under simple laboratory selection. Instead of using modern techniques of genetic sequencing and gene array expression analysis, these scientists merely observed clumps of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to conclude that they had "differentiated" into "adult" and "juvenile" populations. They pretended to measure "apoptosis" through staining with DHR, which actually tests for the presence of reactive oxygen species. It is much more likely that sheering forces present during the shaking of the cultures was responsible for cell death near the middle of colonies as the branches were bent back and forth. Such a scenario would have resulted in cell death and eventual release of portions of the colony. These alternative explanations are easily testable and would likely invalidate the interpretation of the data offered by the scientists who published the study.

[Ivellious]

Perhaps somebody ought to actually try to demonstrate an alternate explanation to invalidate the experiment instead of saying "It's likely I could" and writing it off on that basis.

[Reactionary]

Perhaps somebody ought to actually try to demonstrate an alternate explanation to invalidate the experiment instead of saying "It's likely I could" and writing it off on that basis.

If you were referring to Mr. Deem's article, I believe he was only being skeptical.

The burden of proof lies on the scientists who conducted the experiment, since evolution of multicellularity hasn't been observed before. The study obviously lacks additional checks in order to verify its conclusion. More science, less stories!

[Stu]

Perhaps somebody ought to actually try to demonstrate an alternate explanation to invalidate the experiment instead of saying "It's likely I could" and writing it off on that basis.

Well the question really is, have they validated their own conclusions?
They themselves seemed to have jumped the gun here, that is what is being objected to ...

[Ivellious]

The only people jumping the gun are the ones who claim that this experiment is total lies and worthless. Yes, the burden of proof is on the people who did the experiment. But to presume that nothing will come of it without giving researchers the time to do follow ups, genetic testing, and so on is silly. They put out their initial work to get it out there, to attempt to gather support and funds for further research, and to give fellow scientists the ability to do their own research on it as well (because no good research is ever accepted until it is replicated in multiple labs). Like what was said earlier, this work is preliminary and shouldn't be completely ripped to shreds until the research is concluded.

Honestly, I agree that this is unlikely to be any kind of great breakthrough in biology. It's obviously rare for true breakthroughs to happen. However, I'm willing to give everyone the time to get a more solid base of data before I make the presumption that they're frauds.

[Stu]

Honestly, I agree that this is unlikely to be any kind of great breakthrough in biology. It's obviously rare for true breakthroughs to happen. However, I'm willing to give everyone the time to get a more solid base of data before I make the presumption that they're frauds.

Problem is that is not how it was revealed to the public! They have put the brakes on it now, but the initial announcement was certainly not one of conservative optimism. You wanna rewrite history, fine, but don't expect everyone else to do the same.

[Canuckster1127]

Perhaps the results shouldn't be released and touted until there is sufficient work to validate them?

There's a huge market out there for "news" that validates already presumed assumptions with regard to evolution. Scientists are not less prone to feeding the news cycle in hopes of exposure that will lead to notariety and maybe even, dare I say it, funding?

[sandy_mcd]

Does anyone know the details of how this story propagated?
It was published as an article in PNAS.
It is one of about 125 news links in Januaryhttp://www.nature.com/nature/archive/ca ... =01&page=3 for Nature"
Somehow it made it into the popular news media - Wired etc. Maybe the school put out a press release? Someone scanned Nature or PNAS?
These steps, especially the popular media versions, were done by different people.

Problem is that is not how it was revealed to the public! They have put the brakes on it now, but the initial announcement was certainly not one of conservative optimism. You wanna rewrite history, fine, but don't expect everyone else to do the same.

Does "revealed to the public" mean the original article or what journalists did to it later?
Who put "the brakes on it"? When?

Perhaps the results shouldn't be released and touted until there is sufficient work to validate them?

There's a huge market out there for "news" that validates already presumed assumptions with regard to evolution. Scientists are not less prone to feeding the news cycle in hopes of exposure that will lead to notariety and maybe even, dare I say it, funding?

How are these results different in the validation process than any other publication?
What is the huge market for news verifying evolution and who is feeding it? Is the implication that the paper was produced for this? Or that someone took the article and repackaged it for the popular press?
Funding is a major problem for scientists.


And how come no one has commented on my earlier post in which scientists were stated to believe that unicellular yeasts came from multicellular predecessors? This would fit in with the "evolution only loses information" theory. But it would bring up the question of why scientists believe this.

And here is an example of a questioned paper: the NASA microbes live on arsenic rather than phosphorus. That paper was greeted with skepticism as soon as the press release came out. Here's one followup:http://www.nature.com/news/study-challe ... ife-1.9861


Here's an old paper: http://chronicle.com/article/We-Must-St ... -of/65890/June 13, 2010
We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research

[Rich]

PNAS is not a peer-reviewed journal. I am sure that if they had tried to get their study published in a real peer-reviewed science journal, the referees would have asked for additional experimental results. They also would not have allowed some of the outlandish statements that were made in the article.

[Wozzo]

Has there been further comment or update re this issue ?

reading above and the links, and not being a bio-chemist, the thing that occurs to me is what I feel is the underlying question when considering ID vs evolution. irrespective of how single cells may or may not combine to form multi cellular entities, what caused the first 'living cell' ?

Wozzo

[B. W.]

One more comment...

The findings are revealing – the experiment needed a creator to design the test, build the supplies used in the test as well as put the material together for the test…

I think the designers of the experiment failed to note their own agency involved in the test they created…

Bottom line – without a creator nothing gets done…

So, if anything, this experiment proves the need for a designing creator!

Look at the quote from the article itself nad see what I mean...

An evolutionary transition that took several billion years to occur in nature has happened in a laboratory, and it needed just 60 days.

Under artificial pressure to become larger, single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures. That crucial step is responsible for life’s progression beyond algae and bacteria, and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them.

“This is actually simple. It doesn’t need mystical complexity or a lot of the things that people have hypothesized — special genes, a huge genome, very unnatural conditions,” said evolutionary biologist Michael Travisano of the University of Minnesota, co-author of a study Jan. 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In the new study, researchers led by Travisano and William Ratcliff grew brewer’s yeast, a common single-celled organism, in flasks of nutrient-rich broth.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/ ... llularity/