I remember seeing an electron microscope picture of a
virus and thinking the thing had more in common with a
nanobot than something living. Looked very mechanical.
Don't remember which virus but think it was in
Scientific American about 15 years ago.
-Kirk
--- robert luis rabello <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> bob allen wrote:
>
> > Interesting. I really don't understand how you
> rationalize micro
> > evolution "on a daily basis" but reject macro
> evolution over many, many
> > millenia.
>
> For the same reason why I don't win the lottery
> every day. Micro
> evolution is the expression of phenotype in response
> to changing
> environmental conditions. The basic morphology of
> the creature does
> not change. This is observed in nature and
> environments as mundane as
> the barnyard. A mechanistic view of the fossil
> record is the only
> "evidence" cited for macro evolution, (though I
> would argue that it's
> not actually present in the fossil record) and the
> positive mutations
> required for a new species (let's define that as a
> creature that
> cannot successfully bear offspring when mated to
> anything other than
> its own kind) to emerge stagger my imagination; even
> when I consider
> those mutagenic events to occur simultaneously in
> oceans teeming with
> chemistry favorable for life, not just sequentially.
>
> I don't expect you to accept my view as
> meritorious. I do, however,
> understand your position very well.
>
> > no it doesn't. that is what mutations are all
> about.
>
> Mutagenesis can only impact an existing genome, it
> cannot create one.
> Further, in the event that a given mutation
> happens to be viable, a
> creature must be able to pass that mutation
> successfully to its
> offspring, and in addition, that mutation must give
> the creature some
> kind of "competitive advantage" (your clever
> wording) in order for the
> environment to "select" for that trait. We both
> understand this.
> Where we differ is in our view of whether or not
> this process explains
> the diversity of life on earth.
>
> > agreed, but that has nothing to do with the
> variability of life on the
> > planet. Only those mutations which confer a
> competitive advantage to an
> > organism will be selected for.
>
> The overwhelmingly negative impact of mutations on
> a genome has a
> great deal to do with the variability of life on the
> planet. If
> mutagenesis was the mechanism by which life adapts
> to the environment,
> this planet should be sterile.
>
> > Well, I just took a poll of several of my
> biologist colleagues and 100
> > per cent do believe that spontaneous generation
> took place at least
> > once, maybe more, on this planet. And we are
> only one of billions and
> > billions of planets. To me the odds are in favor
> of spontaneous
> > generation in the universe, we just happen to be
> one of those places
> > where chemistry, temperature, etc are right for
> what we call life.
>
>
> No scientist has ever demonstrated the concept of
> spontaneous
> generation in any experiment, neither is it observed
> in nature. The
> belief that life arose on its own requires as much
> (if not more) faith
> than does the belief that God created life on earth.
> If your
> colleagues believe in spontaneous generation, they
> should start a
> church. . .
>
> Read the article in the 1979 special edition of
> "Scientific
> American", entitled "Life: Origin and Evolution".
> (This was the one
> that retracted the 1953 Stanley Miller experiment,
> in which he
> produced amino acids in a laboratory flask.)
> Retracting the work of a
> Nobel Laureate is not done lightly. The fossil
> record indicates that
> single celled life began once there was water
> present on the surface
> of the earth. This doesn't allow for the requisite
> time that a random
> coupling of molecules would require to produce a
> living thing.
>
> The rates and order of mutations, the "original"
> DNA upon which
> mutagenesis was subjected and the environmental
> conditions that
> existed at the time must all be assumed. The
> conceptual framework
> upon which this theory is built requires a number of
> such assumptions
>
> > not to you apparently, but I and a lot of others
> don't have any
> > problem. There are some vary provocative
> experiments going on with
> > autocatalytic RNA
>
> Indeed! It's all very interesting. For those who
> are not familiar
> with autocatalytic RNA, a current theory proposes
> that before proteins
> existed, RNA provided both genetic information and
> catalyzed chemical
> reactions. These were not "alive" in the sense that
> is commonly
> understood, but provided the building blocks upon
> which life moves
> forward.
>
> The jury is still out on this one, however. We
> have to wait for
> additional research.
>
> > Not really, 120 million years is a long time.
>
> But the difference in time between the appearance
> of single celled
> life and that of the ediacaran fauna, when compared
> to the difference
> in time between the appearance of ediacaran fauna
> and the Cambrian
> period presents a curious problem. Why can we infer
> a very long
> period between the arising of single celled
> creatures and the
> ediacaran fauna, (with a relatively minor change in
> morphology), when
> the much shorter period between the rise of
> ediacaran fauna and the
> Cambrian produced an incredibly vast diversity of
> life forms?
>
>
> > Just look at the
> > variability of dogs. Everything from teacup
> poodles to great danes
> > are descended from wolves only a few thousand
> years ago.
>
> Dogs have been selectively bred by intelligent
> humans. This is an
> entirely different process than mutagenesis. Every
> trait selected for
> breeding already appears in the genome.
>
> > I recommend
> > _In the blink of an eye_ by Andrew Parker. It is
> yet another
> > explanation of the cambrian explosion. His
> position is that it was the
> > evolution of photosensitivity that then resulted
> in an massive increase
> > in ecological nitches which were filled through
> natural selection.
>
> I'll look for the book. Thanks!
>
>
> > Come on, lets not use that tired expression "
> thing", The only place I
> > see it used is among creationists. the difference
> between me and a bed
> > bug is our genome. (and a scant difference it is)
>
>
> Very well. I'll change the wording. Can you
> change a mammal into a
> non mammal? Even if this was possible, "directed
> mutagenesis"
> requires a certain amount of intelligence to
> manipulate the genome.
>
=== message truncated ===
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