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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 11/01/2004 : 14:47:59 [Permalink]
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Done and done, astropin.
Y'know, I'm still not sure where Jerry's coming from. At last report, he said that he 'sees' design in everything. Further, he earlier said something to the effect that the designer could be anything including my uncle Frank (not likely as he died on the beach at Pelau in WW II).
WTF. Anyone can see a 'design' in anything. Example: sharing my digs is a large, plump, and very snappy, Flordia Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus conanti). This animal is beautifully designed to do what it does: hang out in swamps, eat anything it can catch and scare the bejabbers out of the tourests. Was it 'designed' by some supernatural entity like a god or the shade of my late uncle Frank? To go that route, we must first have evidence that this god or ghost exists. None has been forthcoming for either. Nor any other cosmic designing entity.
If I have it right, finally (but questionable, I fear), Jerry has put forth an unknown and therefore less than certain designer in favor of uncounted working hours of serious research by highly qualified people. He is essentially trading science for speculative guessing and trying to back it up with science. That makes no sense to me.
Say, did you know that a sassafras plant will have three different shapes of leaves, often on the same limb? Fuck Dembski's 'que; filet gumbo, anyone?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 15:09:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
Done and done, astropin.
Y'know, I'm still not sure where Jerry's coming from. At last report, he said that he 'sees' design in everything. Further, he earlier said something to the effect that the designer could be anything including my uncle Frank (not likely as he died on the beach at Pelau in WW II).
Ok, I've just written an entire theory proving your Uncle Frank was indeed the creator of everything and how, being related to him, you're part of the Holy Family 
Too much sugar. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 15:23:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Siberia
quote:
Originally posted by filthy
Done and done, astropin.
Y'know, I'm still not sure where Jerry's coming from. At last report, he said that he 'sees' design in everything. Further, he earlier said something to the effect that the designer could be anything including my uncle Frank (not likely as he died on the beach at Pelau in WW II).
Ok, I've just written an entire theory proving your Uncle Frank was indeed the creator of everything and how, being related to him, you're part of the Holy Family
Too much sugar.
Well. I suppose. But the hole is in my britches. My elder daughter has promised to patch it, but she hasn't gotten around to it yet.
Not enough booze.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend
279 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 15:50:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
So around 50 percent subscribes to the modern synthesis, whether directed by God or undirected. What would be interesting would be the question whether those 39% you mentioned would be of the opinion that unguided evolution could happen, but didn't, out of faith.
Furthermore, I would like to see a split up of these figures based on the studies done. I would recon that amongst the 'critics' there would not be a lot of biology students.
We can't know what they were thinking, obviously. All we can draw from the poll is that 51% of college graduates, not the dumb American public as some seem to think, but college graduates that have studied the subject, completely reject all teachings on evolution. And only 10% accept it in the secular vein it is taught. I think this speaks volumes in that Darwinism is simply dead in the water intellectually. Just a few it seems, for reasons that would be known only to them, still fight valiantly for the cause.
quote:
The concept Pasteur specifically disproved was that, for example, maggots spontaneously arose out of rotting meat. This is a whole different concept than the concept of abiogenesis as it is looked at today. Thus, he did not disprove the concept of abiogenesis as looked upon today, but disproved the concept as looked upon then.
To research this you'll have to do more than look at some dictionary quotes. You'll have to dive into the history of the concepts, how they were looked upon at that time, by the people at that time. Only this way you can assess what Pasteur did or did not research.
I have researched the experiments I mentioned. In fact I've done research in my own laboratory and fully understand how to build primitive cells called liposomes made of the same material your cells walls are made of, phospholipids.
Here is a picture of some cells I constructed from scratch under my computer microscope:
While I'll grant it there are some differences between modern abiogenesis and spontaneous generation, the concepts are the same: Life from dead matter and neither happen in reality.
quote:
But you also claim that this design is not arrived at through natural selection and mutation. So you do claim designers, or at least you rally against the claim of a specific one (namely a natural, unintelligent one).
But I do not claim any particular designer. I claim only the ability to detect design as other sciences have done for years. Do you think that if SETI scientists ever detect that long-sought intelligent signal from space suggesting there is other intelligent life out there that they will immediately also be able determine that the alien who sent it is named Herman?
This forum's stubborn insistence that the detection of design also identifies the designer is simply illogical to any outsider reading this. |
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend
279 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 15:58:50 [Permalink]
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Siberia:
quote:
Why not?
I may be outright wrong, but what I'm getting is, you think the non-existent 'complex evolution' or whatever can't exist simply because nature, unless guided, couldn't produce such things by chance. Name it as you will; second law of thermodynamics, entropy, whatever.
For me, that's simply underestimating nature and the universe as a whole by giving to it a perfectly human characteristic - i.e., intelligence.
My, if it were only this simple that we could just shrug our shoulders and ask, why not? But there is a very good reason why not. Because it is mathematically impossible as I've shown right here on the skeptic's forum. Are you people really skeptics? Then I would invite you truly investigate this to uncover truth. That is the goal of every free-thinker, is it not? |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 16:30:37 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by JerryB
We can't know what they were thinking, obviously. All we can draw from the poll is that 51% of college graduates, not the dumb American public as some seem to think, but college graduates that have studied the subject, completely reject all teachings on evolution. And only 10% accept it in the secular vein it is taught. I think this speaks volumes in that Darwinism is simply dead in the water intellectually. Just a few it seems, for reasons that would be known only to them, still fight valiantly for the cause.
Just because they were college graduates does not mean they have any grasp of evolutionary theory. If you were a business major the chances of you completely understanding biological evolution is slim. The article you cited stated as much: "Americans also fared poorly in their knowledge about the science behind evolutionary theory. "
So their rejection of evolution is based on a misunderstanding of it. In Europe, where they scored higher in science, evolution is much more widely accepted. And among people specifically trained in the biological sciences, acceptence is nearly universal. If anything, this poll would lead one to conclude that it is because Americans trail behind the rest of the world in scientific literacy that so many Americans reject evolution.
The fundamentalist religious movement in America also does much to cloud and obfuscate what evolution really says. It is this ignorance and prejudice that scientists are actively seeking to dispel. Proponents of evolution aren't some fanatical minority, as you would have us believe, but truthfully the good majority the world, who are currently shaking their heads at a sizeable portion of a miseducated American public.
It has nothing to do with the theory of evolution itself, but the state of science education in America.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 11/01/2004 16:36:04 |
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend
279 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 16:41:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
I am. What the hell are we talking about? Do you yourself know?
LOL....There's some intellectual honesty. Let's see if I can explain this to you. Intelligent design is a science that employs certain techniques to determine design in artifacts and systems. That's it; and it doesn't get anymore complicated that that.
Archeology is another science that uses design techniques because often with an archeological dig it becomes necessary to determine if a find is an intentional (intelligent) design or simply exists due to some natural process.
Once design is detected our job is done and we can then classify the artifact or system as designed or produced by nature. You seem to think that once design is detected we can go ahead and identify who the designer was.
You further seem to think that I believe the designer to be the Christian God of the Bible. I do not. I would have no Idea what did the designing because I have no scientific evidence with which to identify the designer. Period. So every time you bring up the term designer, my standard answer will be, I don't know who the designer is, I don't claim any designers or have knowledge of any other than my Aunt Norma who is an interior designer. Well, I guess I do know Steve Perryman over at ARN who is a design engineer by profession, but that would be about it.
quote:
By the way, the stats quoted sound about right over all. However, with those students in the biological sciences, the numbers will likely be considerably different.
Maybe. But I can state that I was a biology minor and I couldn't buy it even though I had little religious beliefs at that time in my life.
quote:
Consider how many vermiform endoparasites there are. Round worm, tape worm, screw worm, bots and many more that infest both livestock and people. To a person doing some butchering in earlier times, how these came to be was a mystery. Also, the eggs of the common bluebottle fly are very difficult to see if you don't know what you're looking for. A carcass might just be lying there looking and smellibg a bit unpleasant one day, and the next be crawling with tiny but growing maggots. Where did they come from? Why they just popped up spontaniously from the foul humours, of course. Through experimentation, Pastur put these myths to rest.
Neither he nor anyone else has debunked modern, abiogenesis thought and no one will until the research has come up with something definitive, pro or con.
The research has come in, via the experiments of: Urey, Stanley Miller, the Japanese, Nagaoka experiments, Robertson and Miller and others. We know that flies come from flies, pigs from pigs and children from parents. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 16:47:24 [Permalink]
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quote:
But I do not claim any particular designer.
Dave_W, can I call him a liar when he lies? |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 17:51:26 [Permalink]
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Jerry wrote:quote:
All we can draw from the poll is that 51% of college graduates, not the dumb American public as some seem to think, but college graduates that have studied the subject, completely reject all teachings on evolution.
What?!? Unless you can quote from the article you linked to that the graduates had all studied evolution (which is hardly necessary to become a graduate), I may have to begin agreeing with Dude.quote:
And only 10% accept it in the secular vein it is taught.
This, also, is stated nowhere in your reference. The article is about creationism, to boot, and not ID. "Rejecting Darwinism" does not equal "accepting ID," since many of those polled who are strict creationists would deny evolution in any form, and not in the pick-and-choose manner you espouse.quote:
I think this speaks volumes in that Darwinism is simply dead in the water intellectually.
You don't get it: the article you claim as support for this view says that Darwinism is dead in the water theologically. It goes on to say, for example, thatScientists are far more likely to reject the notion that a deity was involved in any scenario for explaining how human and life originated. Only 5% subscribe to a literalist, biblical explanation, 40% accept some kind of theistic evolution, and 55% hold to a strict evolutionary explanation without any participation for a deity. And if you're so adamant, Jerry, that you've got no idea who or what the designer is, why would you spend an iota of effort in arguing against a "secular view" of science? Would you prefer a religious view, because that's the only other kind of science there is?quote:
While I'll grant it there are some differences between modern abiogenesis and spontaneous generation, the concepts are the same: Life from dead matter and neither happen in reality.
Prove it scientifically.quote:
But I do not claim any particular designer. I claim only the ability to detect design as other sciences have done for years. Do you think that if SETI scientists ever detect that long-sought intelligent signal from space suggesting there is other intelligent life out there that they will immediately also be able determine that the alien who sent it is named Herman?
Yet another illogical straw-man argument, as has already been shown in this very thread. Please stop repeating your errors so much, as it doesn't make them correct.quote:
This forum's stubborn insistence that the detection of design also identifies the designer is simply illogical to any outsider reading this.
No, what is illogical is that you insist that "identification of the designer" means we want a personal name, when all that's been asked is whether or not it is God, or Brahma, or "some being from planet Quirtplin." The ridiculous notion that we believe the answer has to be "Herman" is where the illogic is entering the thread, and it comes from you, Jerry.quote:
Because it is mathematically impossible as I've shown right here on the skeptic's forum. Are you people really skeptics? Then I would invite you truly investigate this to uncover truth. That is the goal of every free-thinker, is it not?
Yes, it is, and my understanding of probability says that if something has a 1/10150 chance of happening, it does not mean that one needs to go through 10150 attempts before it might happen.
Besides which, after a re-read, Dembski's math is, indeed, incorrect:Here is Dembski's reasoning: the number of elementary particles in the known universe are estimated to be 10^80. The smallest physically meaningful amount of time is Planck time, 10^45, roughly the number of Planck-time intervals in one second, and 10^25 is more than ten million times the age of our Milky Way galaxy in seconds:
______1______ __1__
10^80 x 10^45 x 10^25 = 10^-150 The multiplication is what is incorrect. The number of particles in the universe is 1080, not 1/1080. Ten million times the age of the galaxy in seconds is 1025, not 1/1025. Planck time, is, indeed, 1/1045 seconds. Multiply them together, and you get 1080x1025x(1/1045) = 1060, a "UBP" of well above one, meaning something is seriously wrong.
And what's wrong is that those numbers are just pulled out of Dembski's butt. They are arbitrary, a charge you haven't rebuted yet. There is no good reason to multiply them together in any fashion, especially as the result isn't a unitless ratio, but instead is expressed properly as "1060 particles" (or, in Dembski's version, 10-150 per particle-second2, which makes even less sense).quote:
We know that flies come from flies, pigs from pigs and children from parents.
And ameobas from cervical carcinomas. How does that fit into ID?
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 17:59:19 [Permalink]
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Here is a very good article called "The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity" written by Ken Miller, which specifically addresses the "irreducibly complex" flagellum which Jerry referenced. He explains how Demski arrived at the numbers in his calculations on the flagellum's probablity, and also why Demski's figures are flawed.
After an illuminating review of the I.D. assertions and facts, Miller (a Christian, notably) writes:
quote:
If, for example, the advocates of design wish to suggest that the intricacies of nature, life, and the universe reveal a world of meaning and purpose consistent with an overarching, possibly Divine intelligence, then their point is philosophical, not scientific. It is a philosophical point of view, incidentally, that I share, along with many scientists...This, however, is not what is meant by "intelligent design" in the parlance of the new anti-evolutionists. Their views demand not a universe in which the beauty and harmony of natural law has brought a world of vibrant and fruitful life into existence, but rather a universe in which the emergence and evolution of life is made expressly impossible by the very same rules. Their view requires that the source of each and every novelty of life was the direct and active involvement of an outside designer whose work violated the very laws of nature he had fashioned.
He also clearly states that most scientists are aware of Intelligent Design theory, and are unimpressed. Any sweeping change I.D. was supposed to have in the scientific community, as Jerry predicted, should have happened already. I.D. proponents are rapidly finding their assertions unsupportable and their methodology fallling apart under scrutiny.
Intelligent Design, young as it is, is quite clearly the theory in crisis.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 11/01/2004 18:05:46 |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 18:05:57 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by JerryB
Archeology is another science that uses design techniques because often with an archeological dig it becomes necessary to determine if a find is an intentional (intelligent) design or simply exists due to some natural process.
Once design is detected our job is done and we can then classify the artifact or system as designed or produced by nature. You seem to think that once design is detected we can go ahead and identify who the designer was.
Not really. Archaeology is the study of human society through the recovery and examination of its material culture.
I cannot think of an example-- in the Middle East, at least-- where archaeologists have wondered if a structure was natural or not. Walls, artifacts, cuneiform tablets, pots-- they're all unequivically remains of material culture.
And I have trouble thinking of an archaeologist who, once she or he finds the remains of human culture, doesn't work hard to assign it to a particular population group. This doesn't always work (pots don't equal people), but they do try... |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 18:13:14 [Permalink]
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It would be easier, indeed, but I don't think blaming it on a said design is any better.
What I can't understand is:
You admit microevolution can happen (small changes coming from DNA).
Yet you fail to understand that the so-called 'complex macroevolution' is only microevolution multiplied by a long, long time (disconsidering the fact modern Theory of Evolution acknowledges no such thing as 'micro' and 'macro' evolution, as said before).
So, you say one teeny thing violates the second law of thermodynamics, but the endless repetition of thereof doesn't.
A pig x pig gives a slightly different pig.
A slightly different pig x another slightly different pig gives out a weirder pig.
(a long time passes by)
Something hardly resembling a pig x something hardly resembling a pig = something that's not a pig anymore.
It's not like a fish would suddenl poof a squirrel. It's like a fish spawning something slightly different, spawning something slightly different, ad infinitum until what you get's not a fish anymore, but an amphibian, then a reptile and then a squirrel.
At least, that's how my humble understandment sees it. What's so mysterious about it? |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 18:21:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
No, what is illogical is that you insist that "identification of the designer" means we want a personal name, when all that's been asked is whether or not it is God, or Brahma, or "some being from planet Quirtplin." The ridiculous notion that we believe the answer has to be "Herman" is where the illogic is entering the thread, and it comes from you, Jerry.quote:
Because it is mathematically impossible as I've shown right here on the skeptic's forum. Are you people really skeptics? Then I would invite you truly investigate this to uncover truth. That is the goal of every free-thinker, is it not?
Yes, it is, and my understanding of probability says that if something has a 1/10150 chance of happening, it does not mean that one needs to go through 10150 attempts before it might happen.
Besides which, after a re-read, Dembski's math is, indeed, incorrect:Here is Dembski's reasoning: the number of elementary particles in the known universe are estimated to be 10^80. The smallest physically meaningful amount of time is Planck time, 10^45, roughly the number of Planck-time intervals in one second, and 10^25 is more than ten million times the age of our Milky Way galaxy in seconds:
______1______ __1__
10^80 x 10^45 x 10^25 = 10^-150 The multiplication is what is incorrect. The number of particles in the universe is 1080, not 1/1080. Ten million times the age of the galaxy in seconds is 1025, not 1/1025. Planck time, is, indeed, 1/1045 seconds. Multiply them together, and you get 1080x1025x(1/1045) = 1060, a "UBP" of well above one, meaning something is seriously wrong.
Actually, Dave, I've been thinking about this. If Jerry accepts this reasoning-- that math "proves" that abiogenesis is impossible, etc., then he must accept that the designer is supernatural. Think about it-- whether it's my uncle Al or an alien from the planet Xxz'ygaras, they're all part of the natural world. And, according to Jerry, in nature, it is impossible for life to form via natural means. Thus, for Jerry, neither Al nor the alien from Xxz'ygaras could have "designed" life on earth, as it is impossible for them to have arisen. Or, to be fair, they could have created life on earth but earlier they themselves were created by a supernatural being-- at some point, according to Jerry's own logic, life in this universe must have sprung via supernatural powers! |
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend
279 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 18:23:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
Hi, Jerry. Regarding this, I must say that other people-- both here and elsewhere-- disagree about the math being "scientifically impossible." But I'll have to let them deal with you.
Unfortunately, on both sides of this issue, few will accept facts. That's rather sad, but true. But you're right in that there are people who disagree with me. They don't know why they disagree with me; they cannot refute the mathematics or come up with any other math that would better fit the scenario, they just disagree with me because this math does not fir into their belief systems.
quote:
Hmmm. This isn't how I understand these retrovirus things (I always imagine a retro virus was one that wears leg warmers and listens to Men at Work) to work. I googled (is it a bad thing that "google" is now a verb?) 'retrovirus' 'primate' and got this as the first hit. I don't know if eveyone can actually read the article, as I'm presently writing from a university library computer that may have special access to it.
In any case, the link is to an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98:18 (31 Aug, 1999) entitled "Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences." I admit that I can't follow all of it (because let's be honest: who really understands things like "The presence of each HERV in a given species was determined by PCR amplification of both the 5' and 3' LTRs of the HERV from genomic DNA"?), but I the thrust of the article is similar (but far more detailed) to what Peptide wrote in the post I linked earlier.
Moreover, the authors disagree with your notion that we should expect similar organisms to have the exact same retrovirus "scars" in their DNA.
Indeed, the authors write (and again, I'm sorry if some of you can't access the article):
quote:
First, the distribution of provirus-containing loci among taxa dates the insertion. Given the size of vertebrate genomes (>1 × 10^9 bp) and the random nature of retroviral integration (22, 23), multiple integrations (and subsequent fixation) of ERV loci at precisely the same location are highly unlikely (24). Therefore, an ERV locus shared by two or more species is descended from a single integration event and is proof that the species share a common ancestor into whose germ line the original integration took place (14).
(The parenthetical numbers are references to the bibliography; I can cut and paste them for anyone interested)
This is completely different from your argument. Why are these guys-- apparently smart people from Tufts University-- so unaware of your argument? Are they that ignorant of something so basic?
Well, they don't seem very ignorant. A bit biased perhaps. But let's examine the paper and see if they really discovered anything. First,
"Many HERVs, including the ones used in this study, are the result of integration events that took place between 5 and 50 million years ago, as indicated by the distribution of specific proviruses at the same integration sites (or "loci") among related species."
That's a long time ago and note they are using the concept of morphospecies to identify the species. IOW, they are comparing similarities of the insertions in order to classify groups of insertions together. This is the same way palentologists use morphology to classify fossils into the same species. Paleontologists understand that this is not really stating these fossils were the same species when they were alive as the only way to determine this is via breeding tests and/or DNA tests. We cannot go back 50 million years to do breeding tests and we have no reliable DNA samples from that period. So these are classified as a morphospecies in that they look similar for the purpose of morphological taxonomy. So, how do they know specifically what viruses species infected what host species 50 million years ago? Hmmm...
Second, they have determined that many of these retro viruses are site specific, but not that they are host specific. In fact they openly admit that some of these ERVs are NOT host specific: "Cross-hybridization and PCR studies consistently reveal that most HERV families are also found in other primates, including apes and Old World monkeys"
But even though I don't believe they are ignorant, I do believe they drew a false conclusion from the research: "Therefore, an ERV locus shared by two or more species is descended from a single integration event and is proof that the species share a common ancestor into whose germ line the original integration took place."
Why? They have openly stated as quoted above that these integration events took place somewhere between 5 and 50 million years ago, so they have no way of knowing when the integration event occurred. And further, they have no idea of how it occurred.
Suppose that a non-host specific virus comes on planet earth similar to HIV, my ancestors get infected, chimps get infected, gibbons become infected and baboons get infected. That virus may leave insertions at the same places on the same chromosomes because some are site specific. Then all species will pass the same insertion on down the lineage.
An examination of the genome today would show the exact same insertions (well, close) and if we misinterpret this, it could lead us to a false conclusion that we descended one from another or at least share a common ancestor when in fact all that occurred is that we shared a common infection. This is unreliable data from which to draw conclusions because no one was there to know what happened.
quote:
Hmm. Good question, but I'm not sure that it's the right way to think about the diversity of life on earth. I mean, the lawn mower is something that was designed with a function-- to cut grass. But life on earth doesn't have a predetermined function. (Unless you assume a designer, perhaps?) Well, it has one-- to reproduce. Everything else is just a means to help it do that, right? But reproduction isn't that hard. (Well...)
Right. But the flagellum I posted was also designed for a function, as a biological trolling motor. In fact, they are very similar motors and I do a comparison study between a flagellum and a trolling motor you might want to read when you get the time here. |
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