All im gonna say for the people that voted less than 10000 years, bones have been dated older than 10000 years old, do the math, if they are older than that, the earth must be older.
I will state again that there is proof that both nature and man can refine what genes are already there to select for a specific already existing trait. What I have trouble believing is that there is a process that creates new genes in an ever more complex fashion.
Perhaps you could try and clarify things, laughing weasel: "proof that both nature and man can refine what genes are already there to select for a specific already existing trait" What do you mean? Do you mean breeding or Gm crops of what? "What I have trouble believing is that there is a process that creates new genes in an ever more complex fashion." Why is that? do you know about the laws of thermodynamics? Then, can you accept that microevolution is an observed phenomenon, and you can watch bateria doing all sorts of things, such as evolving antibiotic resistance. I would suggest that loking for a specific process is too narrow, what you seem to want is a thermodynamic explanation for why more complex systems survive and grow more complex. Have not motor car engines in the past 100 years?
No, they don't. You think that they do. An evolutionary change always takes one generation. That is the speedometer of evolution. The question is how much change is possible within this single generation, and how many generations you need for a major change. Speciation has been observed within out lifetime. That is fairly quick I would say. Of course, don't try to find a speciation event in very long lived animals such as elephants, or turtles and expect it to see it with your own eyes.
Actually, mutations never create new genes, they just rearrange old ones in new ways like a bull growing an extra leg or a fly growing some extra wings. I disagree, I think scientists have their own agendas and anything that doesn't conform to their theories is covered up, like man and dinosaurs living at the same time, this is a proven fact yet no one knows about it.
Genes are an arrangement of DNA. Rearranging the molecule can result in new genes. If many of these genes are expressed in the right way then a new feature might be formed in the phenotype.
What do u mean examples? Every limb on your body was created a few months after conception due to the expression of certain genes during those months. If these genes were expresssed differently it is possible to develop flying wings Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
So, how probable is it that our DNA will get re-arranged? Wouldn't that kill us? Mutations observed in nature are never beneficial.
See thats just not even close to true. Some mutations are beneficial. Some are not. For instance, the aids virus mutates against current treatments. It can happen over a period as quick as 6 months. After that time, the medicane then becomes ineffective. (not beneficial to humans but it sure is to AIDS) Thats why some people with aids have like an entire drawer filled with different medicanes they have to take every day. The biggest problem I see here in this thread right now is Semantics. Mutation is Evolution. Evolution is adaption. Adaption is Natural or Artificial selection. New Gene= one that previously did not exist Old Gene with mutation= gene that did not previously exist. Single deletion of ONE base pair, can cause a FRAME SHIFT= In which the entire gene is changed completely, so that it may look nothing like the original because amino acids are encoded by 3 base like CAG, or GAG, Etc. And dont forget the definition of Evolution. It simply means, SIMPLY: CHANGE OVER TIME. Thats it! Everything else is connotations that have been impregnated in your mind over time. Remember the key principles. Later T P.S. When you say "Wouldn't are DNA rearranging kill us?", you must understand something. Our genetic code has taken 3 billion years to perfect... Any sudden rearrangement of genes, on a mass scale, would probably turn us into a pile of goo. Matter-o-fact, there would be no viable embryo even produced with such a rearrangement of genes.
First of all, give an example if you are going to say that. Second of all, what's your definition of dinosaurs? Dictionary.com di·no·saur ( P ) Pronunciation Key (dn-sôr) n. 1. Any of various extinct, often gigantic, carnivorous or herbivorous reptiles of the orders Saurischia and Ornithischia that were chiefly terrestrial and existed during the Mesozoic Era. 2. A relic of the past: “living dinosaurs of the world of vegetation” (John Olmsted). 3. One that is hopelessly outmoded or unwieldy: “The old, big-city teaching hospital is a dinosaur” (Peggy Breault). That statement might hold up on the legs of definition #2. But thats not the primary definition (#1) in which your statement is flat wrong. If you really want to be technical, we STILL are living with dinosaurs. They're called crocodiles. Grrr... Later T
Carbon Dating. Anything that has ever lived on this planet has carbon in its "body". By measuring how many times that particular carbon has decayed (half-life; Carbon's is between 3500yrs and 7000 I believe depending on what isotope you use), you can determine the approximate age of what you are carbon dating. Also, if the specimen is found in a layer of rock that is 7 million years old, chances are, if there is good evidence that layer of rock wasn't disturbed, that the specimen is as old as the layer. Later T
"If something is determined false then it is thrown out (usually), and everything that depends on it is thrown out. " If this were true, we wouldnt be talking here right now... matter-o-fact, we would be probably still in the stone age. Later T
Maybe I spoke in a vague generalization, but overall that's true. Maybe "determined false" is not a good way to say it. If it's determined that it doesn't work would be better. And even that is not exactly right. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! We sure as hell don't believe in crystal spheres anymore, the flat earth got dumped off a long time ago, the earth at the center of the universe (ok, maybe that's still true relatively speaking Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!), need I go on? Sure it's hard for new controversial theories to take hold, but it's sure as hell better than dogma. Religionists (is that a word?) still believe unfailingly and unalterably in a rationalization fabricated by primitive tribesmen in a bygone era. Speaking of DNA, I recently read about how the actual code is evolving and has evolved. I'll quote a bit of the article here: "At least 16 organisms from a deverse array of evolutionary lineages deviate from nature's standard code in the amino acid 'meaning' they assign to specific standard codons. Many species of the green alga Acetabularia, for example, translate the standard 'stop' codons UAG and UAA as the amino acid glycine. To Candida fundi, the RNA codon CUG, which normally means leucine, instead specifies serine. The existence of such variations demonstrates that the code can evolve and may provide clues about how it did. In all three domains of life, a nonstandard 21st amino acid, selenocysteine, is somtimes fabricated in response to the standard stop codon UGA. ...blah, blah, a 22nd amino acid, pyrrolysine, is produced in the same manner, in response to the standard stop codon UAG." It then goes on to talk about how the code seems perform a kind of error-minimization. "As early as 1965 Carl R. Woese, then at the university of Illinois, observed that similar codons (those sharing two of three letters) usually specify similar amino acids, so a mistake here or there does not greatly affect the resulting protein." It also talks about how the most common transcription error occurs at the last letter in the sequence. They call it "wobble". "But synonomous codons--those coding for the same amino acid-- usually differ by only their last letters, so such mistranslations often yield the same amino acid meaning." You seem to know about genetics, do you have any more helpful info about this? It'd be interesting to be able to trace the path of DNA evolution. Which codons were first, which were the first proteins, how the language evolved. As an aside, it showed a graphic of transcription, the tRNA had an odd shape to my mind. It was basically a key-like shape, with three notches for the codon on the bottom, three circular shapes are arrayed in a cross-like form with a sort-of tail at the top that latches onto a specific amino acid. Is this really how it looks or just a conceptualization? What is tRNA made from? Protein? It'd be far too small wouldn't it? hmmm. Also, mitochondria is another interesting cell structure. Is it true that the mitochondria was once a separate organism that entered a partnership with old single-cells. What does the mitochondria do? Metabolise oxygen? Giving our cells the ability to "breathe" a once poisonous gas? Amazing what evolution can do. It's a very interesting read, it's in the April 2004 Scientific American.
Some thoughts on evolution... The FACTS are the fossils, patterns of organic diversity, and DNA. The THEORY of evolution is what explains them. Just as the retrograde motion of the planets, Venus’ phases, and variations in planetary brightness are among the facts the THEORY that Earth revolves around the sun explains. About evolution and God... Evolution tells us how life came to be where it is, but it does not say why. You can go ahead and have a belief in God and still agree with the theory of evolution because evolution doesn't disprove the idea that God created the world and the life in it. Evolution only contradicts the literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis, and how many of you are actually reading that as an exact historical account anyway?? Evolution cannot say exactly why common descent chose the paths that it did. But, the fact of the matter is there ARE distinct paths, and the theory of evolution is how we explain them. Macroevolution is studied within comparative biochemical and genetic studies, comparative developmental biology, patterns of biogeography, comparative morphology and anatomy and studies of the fossil record. If you know where to look and look with an open mind you'll see that there is tons of proof out there and believe me even if you can come up with a million arguments, you wont be able to argue against the solid proof. Unless of course you just say well God created all that exactly that way, it was all his doing, the tiniest randomest most miniscule similarities we find are all results of Gods hand creating everything and scientists are just wasting their time trying to figure out the delicate intricacies of how life works and how it came to be what it is because, well, God did it. There is even evidence that over 15 different species of humans have existed over time, and that during the period of 3 to 1 million years ago almost 10 different species of humans existed at the same time. The evidence for evolution is stacking up to the point that to doubt the overwhelming mountain of proof is really to be dumb and insist on turning a blind eye to the whole damn thing.
'How the Chordates got a head' p761-762 Developmental Biology Scott F. Gilbert 7th edition, sinauer press
