Take that, creationists: Boffins witness birth of new species in the lab A common chant from the anti-evolution crowd is that you can't demonstrate speciation – the creation of new species – in action. Now a team of scientists can do just that for anyone with a few weeks to spare. In a paper published in the journal Science at the end of November, Justin Meyer, an assistant professor of biology at …
These are modelisations of the receptors, in ribbon (as opposed to space-filling) representation. It's just the (probable) conformation of the proteins involved, and a bit esoteric (especially in ribbon form), albeit usefull.
To be honest the claim of "speciation" here is a bit far-stretched, but the term has always been quite loosely defined in microbiology (and especially virology). The usual consensus is that the concept of species doesn't apply to virions. But it is undoubtedly adaptation, you could label it evolution even, so I'll allow it this time ;-)
Playing devil's advocate here as I don't buy into their sky daddy any more...
But loads of creationists won't actually see this as an issue as they will just say that it's not a new type that has been created and that this kind of change has been observed before. Also they will say that there was a whole load of intelligent interference (they will read design) in the process. What they will want to see is a frog becoming a giraffe before they are convinced.....
I think not. Approximately 9 nano-seconds after the tadpole metamorphoses into a (probably tiny) giraffe, someone will opine that the frog was designed by the Creator to become a giraffe at the appropriate time, and that evolution doesn't come into it. Word-of-the-Year 2016 refers, depressingly.
Playing devil's advocate here as I don't buy into their sky daddy any more...
You beat me to it.
Not sure I would go to much into the "design" side of things because I haven't looked more into the methodology of the experiment. If it was just putting the virus strain into the petri dish with the strains of bacteria and watching, I wouldn't so much consider the results "designed", just observed.
Which, as I say later in the thread, is much like I've observer with cats.
I think most people, including journalists, have some vague concept that the theory incorporates some form of intelligent design. How else to make sense of the recurring headlines that say we are "evolving toward" something or that some species is "more evolved"? How is that possible if there is not a plan that is being followed?
Or maybe they just prattle on with no idea of what the theory actually is.
Or maybe they just prattle on with no idea of what the theory actually is.
I think that's the more accurate assessment. Evolution is probably the least widely understood theory amongst the general public. Lots of people have the idea mutations happen to individual specimens, but that is probably only the grossest mistake. The "I was not descended from an ape" argument probably sums it all up quite well.
I think more people have a better idea of Relativity than they do of Darwinian evolution.
Anyone wanting to understand evolution should read 'Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene'. It sheds a very interesting light on the principle of the survival of the fittest.Anyone who wants to understand the Received View of evolution. This is the account that Dawkins believes and he is at his best as a writer in this book. Dawkins takes too much for granted, however.
Quoting from the wiki-bloody-pedia:
Prigogine traces the dispute over determinism back to Darwin, whose attempt to explain individual variability according to evolving populations inspired Ludwig Boltzmann to explain the behavior of gases in terms of populations of particles rather than individual particles.[22] This led to the field of statistical mechanics and the realization that gases undergo irreversible processes. In deterministic physics, all processes are time-reversible, meaning that they can proceed backward as well as forward through time. As Prigogine explains, determinism is fundamentally a denial of the arrow of time. With no arrow of time, there is no longer a privileged moment known as the "present," which follows a determined "past" and precedes an undetermined "future." All of time is simply given, with the future as determined or undetermined as the past. With irreversibility, the arrow of time is reintroduced to physics. Prigogine notes numerous examples of irreversibility, including diffusion, radioactive decay, solar radiation, weather and the emergence and evolution of life. Like weather systems, organisms are unstable systems existing far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Instability resists standard deterministic explanation. Instead, due to sensitivity to initial conditions, unstable systems can only be explained statistically, that is, in terms of probability.Prigogine's The End of Certainty: time, chaos, and the new laws of nature is a very rewarding and challenging read.
> ... some species is "more evolved"? How is that possible if there is not a plan that is being followed?
There isn't a plan, and I don't think that respectable evolutionary biologists use loose language such as the examples you give. No organism is "the pinnacle of evolution", or whatever, except in the sense that the current generation is the end result of about three billion years of evolution from the first life form [1]. Evolutionary mechanisms don't look forward in time, and don't need to have any such direction to explain fully the diversity of life which we observe. That is what makes it a successful theory: it explains observations better than any other theory, without having to invent anything more than (i) heritable variation amongst siblings and (ii) some of those siblings reproducing more effectively than others.
[1] Possibly not the first life form. Maybe there were others, before and after, not based on DNA/RNA and twenty-odd amino acids, but those didn't survive.
Nope. All Christians believe in a Creator, but that doesn't mean they buy into the wacky world of 'creationist' pseudoscience.
Btw, 'creationists' will just say the virus has adapted within the range it was designed to do, and go on to say adaption isn't evolution.
Nope, that won't convince them.
Nothing will.
I have a bunch of creationists in my family, and even the educated ones eventually retreat to a Matrix-like circular logic if pressed hard. An example would be radionuclide dating - they will eventually argue that the world is really 6800 years old but all the isotopes & fossils and such were made by the creator to make the Laws of Physics make it look like things (like the planet & universe) are billions of years old. They don't get that Scientifically, if you accept that prima facie, it means that saying "the world is really 6800 years old" is a meaningless statement.
An example would be radionuclide dating - they will eventually argue that the world is really 6800 years old but all the isotopes & fossils and such were made by the creator to make the Laws of Physics make it look like things (like the planet & universe) are billions of years old.
It's 1:30am here, so I'm going to make this my last post for tonight.. Don't you feel honoured? :)
While I believe the world is thousands of years old, I do not know for sure exactly how old. I do not believe that our Lord ever lied or acted decieptfully. I do believe that some things in physics have changed (eg recent El Reg article on speed of light changing), and that some things may not yet be fully figured out (eg perhaps some chemical reactions can cause some isotypes to decay at other rates - but maybe not explaiing myself veryu clearly). Main point I want to say though is that
fossils are the remains of animals/plants etc that literally existed in our past. God does not want people to have false concepts, and "it is God's will that none will perish" so why would He deliberately plant evidence that could lead people astray?
Ask your relatives why they believe God was deceitful. I would be interested in hearing their logic.
God made the universe to look as old as it really is, not one second older or newer. To me it looks to be a "few" thousand years, but there's some issues with that I haven't yet fully grasped. Not best state to try and explain but basically I accept the possibility of time dilation with an expanding universe, where some of the universe has experienced illions or billions of yaers of time while the Earth has not despite all being made at the same time. I cannot accept that God made light of a supernova only as light from that where the nova did not occur, if we see it then it happened. God is not a man that he should lie!
People who believe God planted false evidence need to have another look at their beliefs, and their Bible - they don't know Him if they think He ever lied!
(My apologies to those who read this. To many days fo to little sleep and I need rest now)
"While I believe the world is thousands of years old, I do not know for sure exactly how old"
So, why not accept the evidence and measurements others have made? Why stick to the dogma?
" but there's some issues with that I haven't yet fully grasped"
That's because you are trying to fit the evidence into your theory, rather than adjusting the theory to fit the evidence, which is the fundamental problem with a religious explanation of reality.
"God does not want people to have false concepts" && " they don't know Him if they think He ever lied!"
Are you discarding the old testament? There are a LOT of "divine lies" in there. The most obvious one is God demanding of the sacrifice of Isaac, but there are many more. If you accept the bible as "truth" then the fact is that God lies quite a bit....
[http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-biblical-lies-of-god-and-jesus.html]
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” ~ Epicurus
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
The one I like is: Can God create something so massive that even He cannot lift it?
If He can - then He can't lift is, so is not omnipotent.
If He can't - then He is not omnipotent.
For my next trick, I shall don copper armour, stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm, and shout "all gods are bastards"...
Vic.
I could just as "rationally" argue that the Earth is really only a few hours old. I was created just a few minutes ago with memories of past events that never happened. Or maybe there is no Earth at all, and we are in a "Matrix" type simulation. I think, therefore I am, but nothing and nobody else is real. There is no way to prove conclusively otherwise - any argument can be counteracted by stating that the system is created to have the appropriate appearances and illusions.
I cannot know for certain what reality is - but trusting my senses and memories, and using Occam's razor would seem to be the best method to use. Unless I really wanted to become insane.
"Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing your explanation of that giraffe to your child"
"Fish!"
"Yes, quite. As you put it. Fish. But it is quite clearly a giraffe"
"No, it is a fish. If has just specialised"
"It looks nothing like a fish. It has lungs instead of gills, legs instead of fins, fur instead of scales."
"Ah, but back when it was just a foetus, it looked exactly like the foetus of a fish"
"Well that's true for virtually everything that walks, crawls, slithers and whatever. You can't call everything a fish and have any meaningful dialogue about wildlife. We have to give unique names to divergent species if we are ever going to make sense of it all."
"No we don't. That just adds to the confusion and encourages ideas of creationism. No. For better or worse, it's best we keep things very, very simple. You only need to look around you, and see how some humans can conjure fact from fiction and steadfastly believe it, even though they read it in a fictional book"
"You mean like the people looking for King Arthur's relics, even though he was the creation of some Welsh poets"
"Exactly"
"Mmm, so if I bought my pescetarian girlfriend a four legged, hide covered, grass munching, mooing fish supper, that'd be OK then?"
...or does anyone else find this incoherent?
[...]basically I accept the possibility of time dilation with an expanding universe, where some of the universe has experienced illions or billions of yaers of time while the Earth has not despite all being made at the same time. I cannot accept that God made light of a supernova only as light from that where the nova did not occur, if we see it then it happened.
I re-read it a few times but couldn't make head or tail of it. Not just this but pretty much the whole post just reads as a confused rant to me.
I have a bunch of creationists in my family, and even the educated ones eventually retreat to a Matrix-like circular logic if pressed hard. An example would be radionuclide dating - they will eventually argue that the world is really 6800 years old but all the isotopes & fossils and such were made by the creator to make the Laws of Physics make it look like things (like the planet & universe) are billions of years old
Now, some creationists are fundamentalists and thus interpret the Bible literally.
Some will (if they understand) argue that the two DIFFERENT creation stories in the Bible are the same (and even written by the same author, or at the same time!)
Other people believe in creation, but allow for evolution (e.g. need to explain Big Bang, the "days" in the creation story are just phases [after all, a thousand years is but a day to God].)
Ask 'em how many years of obvious high organic/low organic deposits there are in the outflow of the Colorado River[0] ... Spring floods from melting snow wash organic material into the river's delta. The rest of the year, it's pretty much all inorganic. The layers are easily counted in core samples ... There are a lot more than a million layers.
[0] Nicely halted by the Imperial Valley and LA drinking it all, but that's another rant.
"[0] Nicely halted by the Imperial Valley and LA drinking it all, but that's another rant."
@jake: Warning, clueless Brit here.
What is your take on the water treaty situation down there?
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/colorado-river-mexico-water-sharing-trump-231811
Beer icon: you might need as many bottles as you can get soon...
Hopefully it'll get hammered out before PE Bluto takes office.
Note that if the blustering blowhard cancels water delivery from the Colorado River to Mexico, Mexico will retaliate by stopping water delivery to the agricultural area of the Rio Grande valley in Texas (they own Rio Conchos).
The most alarming thing in all of this is that PE Bluto claimed that there was no water shortage in California and the other Western States, and in fact there was obviously more than enough, and that the drought was a figment of the Dem's imagination ...
And sadly, after many year of contention, the Western States & Mexico have finally been negotiating in good faith these last several years. The soon-to-be BigFatIdiot-in-chief is in position to completely balls that up ... and probably will.
Ah, well. We live in interesting times. I think I'll relax and have a homebrew. This round is on me.
"What they will want to see is a frog becoming a giraffe before they are convinced....."
This is a really good point, and one that gets pushed aside quite frequently when debating occurs between the evolutionary scientists and creationists. It seems as though creationists are in some way convinced that macro-evolution is the type of evolution that's being touted by science as "fact". In reality, they're just making a claim that tries to discredit evolution by way of science being unable to prove that macro-evolution has ever taken place. This is a logical fallacy at its core.
Evolutionary science, to my knowledge, has never operated on the premise that macro-evolution is the holy grail of evolutionary science. Evolutionary scientists, biologists, and anthropologists have always backed the theory that evolution has taken hold over millions, possibly billions of years, and has done so on a micro-evolutionary scale. Yes, that means adaptation eventually leading to the divergence of different species. The creationists are playing the wrong card, in the wrong game, while being wholly convinced that their side is "winning" the argument. That's the difference between the arrogance of faith, and the empirical evidence on which science operates. Evolution may be wholly compatible with the theory of "intelligent design". The problem, however, appears to be that those who espouse the idea of "intelligent design" seem to suffer from a complete lack of the intelligence from which they claim to have been created.
"Another nail in the coffins of the anti-evolution crowd""
Relax, I'm sure they can come up with some suitable riposte or other.
The irony is that as the scientific evidence for evolution becomes even stronger, the counter-arguments have to evolve too so as to remain credible. Though I'm not sure that people who are looking for such counter arguments are necessarily concerned about credibility...
Anyway, how long will it be before such a social division leads to the speciation of the human race? If creationists refuse to breed with anyone who knows that evolution is the normal way of things, then the human race will split into different species. Oh how ironic that would be...
[citation needed]
RTFArticle.
I know, this'll be downvoted a record number of times, at least for me..
No shit Sherlock. If people refuse to use our "God-given" skills of sight, deduction, reasoning and communication to see the universe's splendour for what it really is, then ridicule is heading their way.
And if people are going to use suppression of the freedom to appreciate the true nature of that splendour as a tool for social control, as seems to the case in fundamentalist religion, bit of a waste of time making it in the first place. How do you think the big fella feels about that?
"How do you think the big fella feels about that?"
I often find that Christians haven't really thought about their religion at all. For instance, when I ask them what religion they think Jesus of Nazareth was they look a bit stunned. The knock-out blow is when I say 'well, he certainly wasn't a Christian was he?'.
He was a Gnostic* - as was Muhammad.
*Obviously he was born Jewish though.
A group of so-called "scientists", in a futile attempt to deny the majesty of God's creation, have done the unthinkable. These individuals, whose funding should immediately be rescinded, have created in their unspeakable experiments a chimera-like living creature. Disturbingly, they are now claiming that their despoliation of the God's work was somehow the result of a "natural process".
Given that the perpetrators have admitted their crime against God's order, and have even published it in a scientific journal, the news of their arrest by the Spanish inquisition is unexpected any time soon.
"A group of so-called "scientists", in a futile attempt to deny the majesty of God's creation, have done the unthinkable. These individuals, whose funding should immediately be rescinded, have created in their unspeakable experiments a chimera-like living creature."
If it were truly against God's Will, it would never have occurred. Otherwise, he has no capacity to stop man; ergo, God is not omnipotent.
WHO CREATED THE SCIENTISTS? HUH?
(Part of a long discussion with an ex-coworker who tried to prove to me that ALL is intelligently-designed. Some years later he got one of these semi-serious diseases that could be treated but was scary for a bit. Good thing the barded fairy that creates the disease creates also the cure, or who studies the cure!).
They'll just come up with some post hoc argument to try to fit the evidence. If they can imagine Jesus riding on a dinosaur in America, and their God sneakily planting all those fossils to mislead the 'unbeliever', then I'm sure they'll have something amusing to plug in their ears on this occasion.
Perhaps God invented a new species during this experiment on purpose to ensure that these evil disbelievers would be tricked into continuing to believe in evolution, and therefore eventually burn in hell (which does say something about the quality of final-day-judgement, but that's for another occasion...)
Exactly.
They'll just pass this off as anti-Trump Fake news OR an FBI Plot just like the Moon Landings.
I am waiting got the 'Dear Leader' of the USA to Tweet his thoughts on the matter. I don't know if I should laugh or cry at the stupidity of some recent tweets.
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