Page 3 of 3
Re: Robot Wars (Is Intelligent Design bad for science?)
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:50 pm
by zoegirl
Touching cloth,
I am not debating that this is a novel mutation.
I am simply stating that for a relatively simple organism, to see this after 10,000 generations, is stretching this idea of mutations being such a powerful mechanism.
Yes, bacteria are asexual. Sexual recombination certainly provides a powerful mechanism for mixing genes, but this doesn't really change the level of skepticism for the probability of a novel beneficial gene mutation appearing. Sexual organisms would mix this gene and transfer it faster, but even including this, I am still skeptical of this reducing the number of generations were this sexually reproducing organisms.
Certainly this type of experiment is needed to actually show the rates and the actual power of random mutations on a population. If anything, the lab should allow for the acceleration of evolution, for certainly the lab environment provides a stronger selective pressure. And yet it still took that many generations.
You had asked where we stand. Personally, like Byblos, I do not find theistic evolution a threat. I have no doubt whatsoever about the presence of mutations. I find that I am skeptical about the power of mutations with respect to their actual rates. It's interesting that a worldview drives an acceptance of a long-range occurrence without fully being able to see whether it works long-range.
Re: Robot Wars (Is Intelligent Design bad for science?)
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:00 pm
by touchingcloth
zoegirl wrote:
You had asked where we stand. Personally, like Byblos, I do not find theistic evolution a threat. I have no doubt whatsoever about the presence of mutations. I find that I am skeptical about the power of mutations with respect to their actual rates. It's interesting that a worldview drives an acceptance of a long-range occurrence without fully being able to see whether it works long-range.
So do you think that in principle the mechanism could provide for changes at the species level, even if you don't agree with the rates factoring into the timescales?
Re: Robot Wars (Is Intelligent Design bad for science?)
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:09 pm
by zoegirl
I have leaned towards it, especially since the definition of species is somewhat nebulous at best. I have found many Christians who don't balk at the species level change.
Re: Robot Wars (Is Intelligent Design bad for science?)
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 2:24 pm
by Gman
touchingcloth wrote:This kind of thing has been done - I'm can't recall which piece of research it was off the top of my head but it essentially went like this:
- Take some cells that feed mainly on a particular food source - glucose, say.
- Remove or otherwise alter the genes for glucose digestion so that the next generation of cells are unable to feed on it
- Breed a number of lines of the impaired cells, and allow each line to propogate for a number of generations in a glucose-rich environment.
The outcome was that some or all of the lines of cells regained the ability to digest glucose, and in manners different from each other and from the original culture (that which had its genome altered).
Similar things have been observed but in a "bottom-down" manner, that is seeing a trait that wasn't present in previous generations emerge in later ones (as opposed to altering genes and waiting for a trait to re-emerge); for example the ability to metabolize citrate seen in Lenski's experiments, and to metabolize nylon in "wild" bacteria.
My point is that none of the above falsifies the ID hypothesis; it may weight things totally or partially against certain flavours of designers, but we can certainly conceive of a designer capable crafting DNA such that it was able to handle such situations.
A question for you all more out of curiosity that anything else - do you believe that the evolution of, say, flagella, or of apes to men is in impossible in principle, or that it just hasn't happened in practice? That is to say, do you think that god created everything pretty much as we see it, but that potentially species could go on to evolve?
To lay this out more orderly:
- All the information needed to turn a single cell into a creature is held in nothing more than the sequence of nucleotides in that cell's DNA (you probably all agree here)
- DNA can mutate in a number of different ways, and mutations are carried forward throughout generations (you probably all agree here, too)
- Mutations can be responsible for new protein sequences, sometimes manifesting itself in the phenotype (I'm guessing you all agree here as well)
In light of that I can think of a few possible outcomes - feel free to say if you agree with any of them, or to suggest more:
a) DNA physically cannot mutate enough to change one species into another - something in DNA itself impedes such mutation
b) DNA physically cannot mutate enough to change one species into another - some factor external to DNA impedes such mutation
c) DNA could, in principle, mutate enough to change one species into another - it just hasn't ever happened
d) DNA could, in principle, mutate enough to change one species into another - but some factor prevents it from doing so
TC,
I believe the problem with falsifiability is that no scientific theory is strictly falsifiable.. Again with evolution, if a scientist performed that same test using gradual evolutionary standards perhaps it would be even harder to falsify since natural selection requires a much longer time or a greater population base of parts to produce a flagellum. Perhaps it never could, scientists don't really know.
As for myself, like the other mods here, I really don't have any qualms with theistic evolution. No one was here to witness the creation, so God could have used any method he wanted. I'm pretty much a strong progressive creationist however, so I'm not too hip on the theory of a common ancestor. I just don't think there is enough evidence for it. Besides, if I was a theistic evolutionist, I still would lean in favor of intelligent design. Why? Because I do not believe theistic evolution is an alternative in the public systems. The concept of evolution and how it is depicted in the public school systems is clearly void of any type of design whether it is supernatural or alien.