Evolution

[TK-8252]

New viruses are always cropping up... what, is god continually creating new viruses and unleashing them upon populations? Why would he do such a thing??

 

The bird flu is another one we're worred about (at least some people are). Why would we even care about it if it's only in birds? Because it can mutate. Because it can evolve into a new virus, one that is transmitted by people to people rather than by birds to people.

[Q]

Hmm...

 

Viruses mutate so fast that they would provide an excellent opportunity to put evolution to the test in a relatively short timeframe.

 

If they don't kill us all first, that is.

[Mace MacLeod]

I always thought there was more than one Theory of Evoloution, That we evolved from Amoeba, that we came from Monkeys or that oceanic creatures were first and that everything evolved from the tiny organisms on the Seafloor. Is this right, or am I simply breaking one theory into many?

 

Simply put, the Theory is that for the first few billion years on this planet, there were nothing but single-celled organisms. Over time, from these arose multicellular organisms. As these grew and changed, the plant and animal kingdoms arose, first in the oceans of the world. From organisms like algae, plants eventually arose. From other single-celled organisms, the very first types of fish were seen. Eventually, some of these fish evolved the capacity to breath air as well as water, and the first amphibians crawled out onto land. Long before this however, seeds/spores had made their way onto land and developed into terrestrial plants. From the amphibians came dedicated land animals who lost the ability to breathe water as they found life on solid ground advantageous, and for several hundred million years, reptiles flourished. The dinosaurs lasted for quite a while, spreading across the planet and evolving many different varieties of both land and avian species. When the asteroid/meteor/martian H-bomb hit the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, it was the very first small, furry mammals who found that it paid to be small and furry. It also paid to bear and nurse live young, rather than laying eggs. They managed to survive where the dinos couldn't, and like the birds (who are thought to be the last remaining evolutionary outcropping of dinosaurs) they lasted into the present geolocial period. Australia is a good example of an isolated ecosystem--marsupials didn't face competition from placental mammals like they did almost everywhere else on the planet, and so they were allowed to flourish and develop in their isolation.

 

Where humans fit into this is the region of about 100,000 to 50,000 years ago. Austrolopithicine life was developing many variants--Homo Erectus, Neanderthals, and, yes, Homo Sapiens. The exact link between humans and apes still hasn't been precisely established, but the other forms of proto-human life didn't survive. Us humans had superior language and tool-making skills, were better at hunting cooperatively, and in areas where Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons (us) came into contact, the Neanderthals were driven/wiped out. Over time, the Homo Sapiens spread over every continent of the Earth, adapting for their climates. In the hot, arid regions, darker skin was an advantage. In wetter, cooler climates, lighter skin was an advantage.

 

And there you have it in a nutshell. Now, of course the Theory of Evolution is just a theory, but it's held up so relentlessly over the last 100 years because it works for several different academic areas. It explains what we see in the fossil record. It explains what we see in the taxonomy of species. It explains the human races. It explains why humans are 98% genetically similar to chimpanzees. It explains why isolated ecosystems are so vulnerable to foreign flora and fauna. Adapt, and survive. Crocodiles and alligators haven't changed in hundreds of millions of years. They haven't had to. Their design still works. Then look at your pet cat. A very highly evolved and very highly specialized predator, like all felines. Its fangs fit exactly into the spines of small rodents and birds, acting as a scissor which cuts the spinal column very precisely. That clicking noise cats make with their jaws when they watch birds through the window? That's them rehearsing this killing bite.

 

Now sure, you could say that God just made humans, cats, crocodiles and plankton, but this doesn't lead to anything that can be built upon. If God transcends all laws of space, time, physics and everything else, we can't study God or the processes put into play. When you're dealing with the Theory of Evolution, you can build on it. It allows for changes to be made if new evidence or insights come to light. I mean, the Church in 2006 would look pretty stupid and backwards if it started executing astronomers for saying the Earth orbits the sun, wouldn't it? But that's what it did hundreds of years ago. Somewhere along the line, it had to bow to the weight of just too much evidence or risk being an anachronism. I really don't have much doubt that it will eventually have to do the same with Evolution.

 

*edit*The basic theory

 

Darwin's theory of evolution is based on five key observations and inferences drawn from them, as summarized by the biologist Ernst Mayr:

 

1. Species have great fertility. They make more offspring than can grow to adulthood.

2. Populations remain roughly the same size, with modest fluctuations.

3. Food resources are limited, but are relatively constant most of the time. From these three observations it may be inferred that in such an environment there will be a struggle for survival among individuals.

4. In sexually reproducing species, generally no two individuals are identical. Variation is rampant.

5. Much of this variation is heritable.

 

From this Darwin infers: In a world of stable populations where each individual must struggle to survive, those with the "best" characteristics will be more likely to survive, and those desirable traits will be passed to their offspring; and that these advantageous characteristics are inherited by following generations, becoming dominant among the population through time. This is natural selection.

 

Darwin did not suggest that every variation and every character must have a selection value. However, he pointed out that, because of our ignorance of animal physiology and its relationship with the environment, it was extremely rash to set down any characters as valueless to their owners. It is even more important to notice that he did not suggest that every individual with a favorable variation must be selected, or that the selected or favored animals were better or higher, but merely that they were more adapted to their surroundings.

 

Darwin further infers that natural selection, if carried far enough, makes changes in a population, eventually leading to new species. He puts forward myriad observations as demonstrations of this, and also claims that the fossil record can be interpreted as supporting these observations. Darwin imagined it might be possible that all life is descended from an original species from ancient times. Modern DNA evidence is consistent with this idea.

[Achilles]

Interesting arcticle, published today:

 

Possible key human evolution genes identified By Jeremy Lovell

38 minutes ago

 

 

 

LONDON (Reuters) - They could be the missing links of human genetic evolution -- areas of human DNA that changed dramatically after the evolutionary division from chimpanzees, though they had remained almost unchanged for millennia before.

 

Scientists from the United States, Belgium and France identified 49 "human accelerated regions" (HARs) showing a lot of genetic activity.

 

In the most active, identified as HAR1, they found 18 out of the 118 nucleotides had changed since evolutionary separation from chimps some 6 million years ago, while only two had changed in the 310 million years separating the evolutionary lines of chimps and chickens.

 

"Right now we have very suggestive evidence that it might be involved at a critical step in brain development, but we still need to prove that it really makes a difference," team leader David Haussler from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of California, Santa Cruz told Reuters.

 

Other members of the team came from the University of Brussels and Universite Claude Bernard in France.

 

"It is very exciting to use evolution to look at regions of our genome that haven't been explored yet," Haussler said.

 

"It is extremely unlikely that the evolution of just one region in the genome made the difference between our brains and the brains of non-human primates," he said.

 

"It is much more likely to be a series of many, many small changes, each very important, but none doing the entire job by itself," he added.

 

HAR1 is part of a novel RNA gene HAR1F that is produced during the key formative period for the human brain from seven to 19 weeks of gestation.

 

Not only that, but the RNA is produced by the Cajal-Retzius neuron that plays a crucial role in the six layers of neurons in the human cortex.

 

"We still can't say much about the function. But it's a very exciting finding because it is expressed in cells that have a fundamental role in the design and development of the mammalian cortex," Haussler said, noting the need to investigate the remaining 48 HARs.

 

The findings were published on Wednesday in the science journal Nature. Chris Ponting of Oxford University wrote in the same issue hailing it as a possible major step forward.

 

"Previously, the hunt for changes in DNA that are causally linked to human-specific biology had concentrated on differences that would alter the amino-acid make-up of the encoded protein," Ponting wrote.

 

"Now it would seem that searches within the functional non-coding 'dark matter' might be more enlightening," he added.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060816/ts_nm/science_evolution_dc

[Jae Onasi]

What about the new SARS virus? I'm not saying it comes from the flu, but it's certainly something new.

 

Sorry for the confusion, folks. I meant 'mutate into something entirely different from a flu virus'. I'm not talking about the minor differences that change it from a non-virulent to a horribly virulent strain. The virus severity changes have to do with how the virus attaches itself to a cell, usually, rather than a complete change in the virus itself.

 

Bear with me--I'm trying to write coherently in the same week as a crisis of major proportions in my volunteer group (sigh....) that has kept me on the phone for literally days trying to get straightened out and probably won't be completely fixed for weeks or months. And to top it all off, my son fell out of his loft bed and we almost had to make a trip to the ER at 2:30 this am.

If something I post sounds funny, it's probably because I'm thoroughly stressed out at this point from the events and insomnia, and so I'm not thinking on all cylinders.

 

The flu shot thing--a lot of the viruses are around already, in small pockets here and there around the world. The CDC guesses on which ones will become the most active in any given year and thus most likely to cause epidemics, and that's why the flu shot changes every year. Different strains become more or less active. What happens is one strain causes an epidemic, lots of people get it, develop an immunity, and that strain dies down (but not completely out) because most of the people it could infect are now immune. It tends to become more active again as the generation of those who are immune die out. One of the big scares is that the flu virus from the early 1900's (I think 1918 but don't quote me, I'll check on that later) would become active and spread like wildfire. Since none of us was probably around then, none of us got exposed to it and developed an immunity, so all of us are susceptible. That virus has been around for a long time, just not in a very active way.

 

@TK--you've asked one of the fundamental questions that all people have to deal with--why does God allow bad things to happen? That's a huge philosophical debate all by itself, and has a lot to do with allowing free will. I don't know about other religions, but the book of Job in the Bible deals with that (particularly the last few chapters). If you want a more detailed philosophical approach, check out C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain. He's a great writer, and whether or not you agree with him, he presents some very compelling arguments. He'll say it a whole lot better than I can. Ravi Zacharias also has some fascinating arguments--the book title escapes me at the moment, and I'll go look it up and edit here.

 

@Mace--Why can't God set up certain rules of order that we end up calling science and let the world go forward by those natural rules/scientific principles? I don't feel the 2 are mutually exclusive. The only conclusion I disagree with is that 'evolution proves God doesn't exist', and I don't know that anyone's trying to say that.

 

The church folks who condemned those saying the earth was round were obviously not as familiar with the Bible as they should have been. The Bible never said the earth was flat. In fact, in Isa 40:22 it describes 'the circle of the earth.'

 

SARS--according to the CDC is 'a previously unrecognized coronavirus'. (See FAQs on SARS here). That doesn't mean this virus is new. It _could_ be new, though it's from a specific virus type (the coronavirus family). It could also have been hanging around for awhile, and enough people finally got infected that the epidemic could take hold. It's new to _us_, but that doesn't mean it's new to the history of the world. We don't have enough virology knowledge or a complete history of epidemics throughout the millenia to know if this is the first time this has occurred or not. Up until the last 100-150 years or so, if there was an entire village that died from an epidemic, there was no way to confirm with certainty via testing why they died. A SARS epidemic could have gone through the world or at least a relatively large chunk of it, and it just was never recorded. About the best you'll ever see in any early texts, if it was recorded at all, was "a lot of people in town got the catarrh, and many died."

One of the most famous plagues, the Black Death, which happened in Eurasia during the mid-1300's, is assumed to be bubonic/pneumonic plague, but we can't be 100% sure because we have only the historical accounts to go from. There's nothing from that time to test to see if it is really that bacterium or not, and they didn't have light microscopes or any real bacteria knowledge at that time to determine what it was.

So, SARS could be a new variant of a coronavirus, or it could be an old variant that became active again. It's impossible to tell.

 

Enough virology/history of plagues for the moment.

[Mace MacLeod]

Man, this thread is starting to give me a headache...

 

@Mace--Why can't God set up certain rules of order that we end up calling science and let the world go forward by those natural rules/scientific principles? I don't feel the 2 are mutually exclusive. The only conclusion I disagree with is that 'evolution proves God doesn't exist', and I don't know that anyone's trying to say that.

 

The church folks who condemned those saying the earth was round were obviously not as familiar with the Bible as they should have been. The Bible never said the earth was flat. In fact, in Isa 40:22 it describes 'the circle of the earth.'

 

I never said that the rules of physics and science weren't divinely invented. I don't see anywhere in this thread (without succumbing to eyestrain or narcolepsy) where someone says that science and evolution are absolutely not the work of a higher power, or proof that there is no god. Assuming divine intervention as the source of life forms just leaves science at a dead end to make sense of our world in a productive way.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

The church folks who condemned those saying the earth was round were obviously not as familiar with the Bible as they should have been. The Bible never said the earth was flat.

It says in multiple places that the Earth is flat, in accordance with the beliefs of its era.

 

In fact, in Isa 40:22 it describes 'the circle of the earth.'

As opposed ot the 'sphere of the Earth'. There's no reason the people who wrote that passage would refer to a round Earth, what with everyone of that time thinking it was flat.

 

And as a side note, that's another example of Biblical contradiction there. Is the Earth a circular disk, or a rectangular disk with corners?

 

Bear with me--I'm trying to write coherently in the same week as a crisis of major proportions in my volunteer group (sigh....) that has kept me on the phone for literally days trying to get straightened out and probably won't be completely fixed for weeks or months. And to top it all off, my son fell out of his loft bed and we almost had to make a trip to the ER at 2:30 this am.

Holy ****. Best of luck, man.

[Jae Onasi]

It says in multiple places that the Earth is flat, in accordance with the beliefs of its era.

 

And as a side note, that's another example of Biblical contradiction there. Is the Earth a circular disk, or a rectangular disk with corners?

 

I believe '4 corners' refers to North/South/East/West. The rest of the research will have to wait til I get my Greek/Hebrew keyword text and/or consult a theologian.

 

Holy ****. Best of luck, man.

 

Thanks. He's sore today (he fell a good 6 or 7 feet) but seems OK. It's one of the few times when a messy floor was helpful. I think he landed on some stuffed animals instead of just the bare wood floor.

 

@Mace--What, you're not into discussions of virology and ocular physiology? Isn't everyone? And don't get me started on tornadoes....

I didn't mean to say you had implied there was no divine intervention. It was a more general statement, not anything anyone had said here specifically. That's what I get for writing on too little sleep.

 

 

This is Jae's brain....

This is Jae's brain on lack of sleep...

Any questions?