# Stuff and Things > HISTORY, veterans & science >  How evolution really works

## nonsqtr

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the source of variability. So I thought I would try to be helpful, and lay a few facts at your feet.

1. The most common source of DNA mutation (being defined as a change in the sequence of base pairs) is errors during replication. These are surprisingly frequent, natively they occur about one time in 10,000. However repair mechanisms decrease the odds by five orders of magnitude, in real life we see about one-in-a-billion.

2. The whole purpose of sexual reproduction is genetic variability. In organisms with linear genomes ("chromosomes") there are two phenomena that define additional variability: independent assortment of chromosomes, and crossing over. I will illustrate each by example.

2a. Each pair of chromosomes sorts homologs into daughter cells independently. This mechanism alone generates 2^23 variations in humans.

2b. In crossing over, homologous portions of independent (non-sibling) chromatids trade places. This produces daughter DNA that is neither maternal nor paternal.

3. Pretend you're a hacker, and you're trying to hack into the DNA code. What kinds of attacks could you use? For instance, there is a dimerization attack, you can dimerize neighboring pyrimidines with UV light. You can alkylate nitrogen, you can deaminate cytosine ... there are a whole host of attack vectors. But obviously, any attack must be directed against the germ cells, because mutations in any other cells are not transmitted to the offspring. Most somatic mutations are also not transmitted, but note that a somatic mutation present in the original mother cell may be so transmitted.

4. Strands of DNA can also break. That happens all the time, and once again there are specific repair mechanisms. DNA breaks are a common source of frameshift mutations, and these are much more interesting from an evolutionary standpoint, than point mutations. Another kind of non point mutation leads to uncontrolled methylation. There's a lot of things you can do to a strand of DNA, and if you're a hacker you can delete information, change information, or add new information.

5. We know of specific repair systems for mismatch, base excision, nuclear excision, and several others - these provide a "layer of security" which any hacker would have to get through to make changes. And, much like a hacker in a computer system, the hacker only has a small window of opportunity before he is noticed and shut down. No one has yet found a way to quantitatively stress the repair systems, it's rather easy to destroy them chemically but not in a controlled manner. So it's very hard to measure what effect the hacker is having. Where we see the downstream results, is in the proteins. Proteins are rendered useless or unusable, or converted into performing some other function. Mutations have been classified according to their end effects on the proteins, for example missense and nonsense.

6. A really good hacker can wreak total havoc on a DNA system. Gene inactivation is only the beginning, there is gene duplication, there is altered regulation, there is even shuffling across chromosomes. A broken piece of DNA can combine with another broken piece, or it can  pair off with a locally homologous area and thereafter be repaired,  the nature of the repair being entirely erroneous. And the nature of human DNA is such that most of these mutations, if they are allowed to proceed, end up being entirely fatal. There are only a very small number and type of mutations that are "allowable", in terms of the survival of the organism. Those that survive, are given an opportunity to test their capability against the environment.

7. Do the math. You expect 1 uncorrected error with every 10^9 attempts. There are 3x10^9 base pairs in human DNA. There for you expect 3 errors EVERY time a cell divides. And there are ways of getting more specific, you can actually figure out how many gene duplication events to expect and so on. Duplication is particularly interesting because only one of the copies is needed for the organism to survive, the other one becomes available for any purpose whatsoever.

All these sources of variability are important in evolution. Random gamma rays penetrating cell membranes are also important, but it is abundantly clear at this point that the actual mechanism of variability is being very carefully controlled, BY THE DNA ITSELF. It is a highly nonlinear dynamic system which must be kept in a rather narrow equilibrium in order to function properly. Proper function INCLUDES carefully controlled mutation.

People who study the brain, used to think that the statistical variability in nerve membranes was nothing more than a nuisance. But now we know that this variability is essential for proper brain function. The brain could not function at all without it. DNA is the same way. People need to stop looking at mutations as a problem. Variability is what drives evolution forward.

Most people, do not go through life hitting themselves or striking themselves in a painful way. Organisms that do that, tended to die off in the population. However there is a disease in humans called ballism, which has the primary symptom of uncontrollable movements of the extremities. These people flagellate themselves, they hit themselves in the face, they poke themselves in the eye... this is a surprisingly common condition, and it is heritable, and sometimes it arises for no obvious reason at all. But whatever the origin, it appears to be one of the "allowable" mutations. Why it should be this way, is anyone's guess. But it is. The entire spectrum of cluster B personalities is allowable, and you kind of have to think for a while before you figure out what kind of evolutionary advantages those might confer.

To my knowledge, no one has ever created in mutation map of the human genome. Such a thing would be hugely interesting, and undoubtedly important for future progress in human genetics. Mitochondrial DNA is also of great interest. It also has certain regions which must remain intact for the survival of the organism, and other regions which are more labile and volatile.

This is the important thing to realize though, the math says every single germ cell will have three mutations. Mutations are not "rare events", they are FREQUENT. Most of them are quickly corrected, some are not - and it appears the genome is selecting which ones are and which ones aren't.

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Canadianeye (02-04-2018),Oceander (03-01-2021),Swedgin (03-02-2021)

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## Robert Urbanek

_These people flagellate themselves, they hit themselves in the face, they poke themselves in the eye...

There may be a related Three Stooges mutation._

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Oceander (03-01-2021)

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## Swedgin

I say, let a teacher explain it:

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Dos Equis (03-09-2021),jirqoadai (03-08-2021),Kris P Bacon (02-13-2018)

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## nonsqtr

There is no known organism that has the same brain system for vergence and conjugate eye movements. 

What does that tell us?

Evolution occurs in layers, it's kind of pointless looking for engineering perfection.

The 3D environment is a relatively late invention in evolution. The systems that identify which objects are being tracked, are completely different from the systems that identify how far away they are.

If an engineer were designing the system from scratch, he would do a 3D embedding and that would be the end of it. 

But that's not what happens in real life. In real life, the vergence movement interrupts the saccadic movement in progress, makes a correction, and then lets the saccade continue. In other words, this is a very complicated dynamic system, and during the course of evolution, the vergence mechanism has inserted itself into the dynamics of the saccade.

DNA works exactly the same way. The complexity occurs in layers, and we have to understand the basic layers first.

This is why, for instance, the CAP protein is getting so much air play right now. The plasmid based exchange of genetic material between cells turns out to be a ubiquitous evolutionary mechanism, it is not just peculiar to viruses. It is easy to imagine how this may have started as a corrective mechanism, for one cell to verify its DNA with another. And, it is also very easy to see how it got from there, to an outright communication mechanism.

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Canadianeye (02-04-2018),Swedgin (02-02-2018)

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## nonsqtr

No comments from the peanut gallery?

Good. That means there's learning going on. It's hard to refute the truth.

It also helps to have a big picture. The fossil Trace is only one of 13 converging lines of evidence for evolution, and at this juncture it's almost insignificant.

What is interesting, are CONTROLLED DUPLICATION EVENTS, where variability is being deliberately introduced and controlled for a specific purpose. Rearrangement and crossover under genetic control, occur in the immune system, in the olfactory system, and now perhaps in the brain as well. In each case a library of available responses is being built.

In the same way that the probability of error can be reduced by five orders of magnitude with repair mechanisms, they can also be INCREASED my five orders of magnitude.

The Human Genome Project is of limited value because it's 6 to Define an average genome, and there is no such thing.

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## usfan

> No comments from the peanut gallery?


So right off you heckle and ad hom, but pretend to want reasoned debate?

 :Shakeshead: 

You've never wanted a scientific discussion about this subject before, what makes this thread any different?

Does disparaging those who believe differently than you somehow provide validation?

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patrickt (02-03-2018)

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## nonsqtr

Hm, thought I heard a noise.

Food for thought:

There are 3 billion base pairs in the human genome. Each gene has maybe 30,000 on average.

Question: could you build a human with 10,000 genes?

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## usfan

> There seems to be a lot of confusion about the source of variability. So I thought I would try to be helpful, and lay a few facts at your feet.
> 
> 1. The most common source of DNA mutation (being defined as a change in the sequence of base pairs) is errors during replication. These are surprisingly frequent, natively they occur about one time in 10,000. However repair mechanisms decrease the odds by five orders of magnitude, in real life we see about one-in-a-billion.


Any 'errors' in mutation or replication are either deadly to the dna strand, which is replicated with a new, accurate one, or is a negative to the organism.  This does not 'create!' a new organism, or change the genetic structure.  This is not evolution.  If anything, it forbids any structural changes in the genome.



> 2. The whole purpose of sexual reproduction is genetic variability. In organisms with linear genomes ("chromosomes") there are two phenomena that define additional variability: independent assortment of chromosomes, and crossing over. I will illustrate each by example.


Perhaps for you.  For all other organisms, they 'reproduce' themselves.  Whatever genes go in, is what comes out.  They do not 'cross over', or get to choose their gender, or pretend they are a lion if they are born a chihuahua. 

Do you have any evidence for these amazing phenomena?  Anything other than assertion? Can you show how the minor changes at the genetic level add up to major changes in the genetic structure?



> 2a. Each pair of chromosomes sorts homologs into daughter cells independently. This mechanism alone generates 2^23 variations in humans.
> 
> 2b. In crossing over, homologous portions of independent (non-sibling) chromatids trade places. This produces daughter DNA that is neither maternal nor paternal.


So, as these genes come out of the closet &  cross over, what changes the genetic structure, to magically convert them from a whale to a horse?  How do you get the wholesale changes in the genome with the imagined baby steps of change, which cannot be observed?  Why would you think this can happen?  Nothing in observable science demonstrates this belief, yet you present it as 'settled science!'



> 3. Pretend you're a hacker, and you're trying to hack into the DNA code. What kinds of attacks could you use? For instance, there is a dimerization attack, you can dimerize neighboring pyrimidines with UV light. You can alkylate nitrogen, you can deaminate cytosine ... there are a whole host of attack vectors. But obviously, any attack must be directed against the germ cells, because mutations in any other cells are not transmitted to the offspring. Most somatic mutations are also not transmitted, but note that a somatic mutation present in the original mother cell may be so transmitted.


We have done a lot more than pretend, in hacking the genome.  We have spliced 'similar' genes, to fool the host.  we have cloned, modified, & altered the genes at the most basic level.  But in all this, we have NOT produced ONE different organism, genetically..  not anything self replicating, with a different structure than the host.  You can make glowing cats, or splice genes into similar organisms.  But this is NOT universal common descent.. It is just genetic meddling.  The organisms do not add eyes, hearing,  wings, legs, or change their genes. They reproduce themselves,  and do not flit about in their genetic makeup. 




> 4. Strands of DNA can also break. That happens all the time, and once again there are specific repair mechanisms. DNA breaks are a common source of frameshift mutations, and these are much more interesting from an evolutionary standpoint, than point mutations. Another kind of non point mutation leads to uncontrolled methylation. There's a lot of things you can do to a strand of DNA, and if you're a hacker you can delete information, change information, or add new information


So you assert,  without evidence.  But experimental science says otherwise.  None of the things you claim have ever been observed in 'creating' a new organism. There is VERY LITTLE,  in actual practice,  that you can do with a DNA strand. The more you mess with it, the more likely you will kill it. Each DNA strand is unique to each organism,  or phylogenetic type. They are not Lego blocks,  that you unplug from one and move to another.

This flawed 'Lego block' view of genetics is probably the number one misconception about living things,  and gives faulty credence to the theory of universal descent. 

In the decades man has been experimenting with genetics,  we have not created ONE 'new' organism. Yet we are supposed to 'believe!' that this happens? By accident? Why? By what mechanism? We cannot force this allegedly simple process, yet are supposed to believe it has happened,  and still happens?



> 5. We know of specific repair systems for mismatch, base excision, nuclear excision, and several others - these provide a "layer of security" which any hacker would have to get through to make changes. And, much like a hacker in a computer system, the hacker only has a small window of opportunity before he is noticed and shut down. No one has yet found a way to quantitatively stress the repair systems, it's rather easy to destroy them chemically but not in a controlled manner. So it's very hard to measure what effect the hacker is having. Where we see the downstream results, is in the proteins. Proteins are rendered useless or unusable, or converted into performing some other function. Mutations have been classified according to their end effects on the proteins, for example missense and nonsense


In spite of the Herculean efforts by the True Believers in universal descent,  none of these things you describe have led to a single new organism. Bacteria remain bacteria. Fruit flies remain fruit flies. Mice remain mice, with all their genetic history intact. We cannot infuse new information into the genome. We can 'select' from preexisting traits,  but we cannot create new ones.

The flawed and common belief is that we CAN mess with the genes, and create all sorts of new organisms with new traits.  But that is fodder for movies.. It is science fiction,  not empirical science. 




> 6. A really good hacker can wreak total havoc on a DNA system. Gene inactivation is only the beginning, there is gene duplication, there is altered regulation, there is even shuffling across chromosomes. A broken piece of DNA can combine with another broken piece, or it can  pair off with a locally homologous area and thereafter be repaired,  the nature of the repair being entirely erroneous. And the nature of human DNA is such that most of these mutations, if they are allowed to proceed, end up being entirely fatal. There are only a very small number and type of mutations that are "allowable", in terms of the survival of the organism. Those that survive, are given an opportunity to test their capability against the environment.
> 
> 7. Do the math. You expect 1 uncorrected error with every 10^9 attempts. There are 3x10^9 base pairs in human DNA. There for you expect 3 errors EVERY time a cell divides. And there are ways of getting more specific, you can actually figure out how many gene duplication events to expect and so on. Duplication is particularly interesting because only one of the copies is needed for the organism to survive, the other one becomes available for any purpose whatsoever.
> 
> All these sources of variability are important in evolution. Random gamma rays penetrating cell membranes are also important, but it is abundantly clear at this point that the actual mechanism of variability is being very carefully controlled, BY THE DNA ITSELF. It is a highly nonlinear dynamic system which must be kept in a rather narrow equilibrium in order to function properly. Proper function INCLUDES carefully controlled mutation.
> 
> People who study the brain, used to think that the statistical variability in nerve membranes was nothing more than a nuisance. But now we know that this variability is essential for proper brain function. The brain could not function at all without it. DNA is the same way. People need to stop looking at mutations as a problem. Variability is what drives evolution forward.
> 
> Most people, do not go through life hitting themselves or striking themselves in a painful way. Organisms that do that, tended to die off in the population. However there is a disease in humans called ballism, which has the primary symptom of uncontrollable movements of the extremities. These people flagellate themselves, they hit themselves in the face, they poke themselves in the eye... this is a surprisingly common condition, and it is heritable, and sometimes it arises for no obvious reason at all. But whatever the origin, it appears to be one of the "allowable" mutations. Why it should be this way, is anyone's guess. But it is. The entire spectrum of cluster B personalities is allowable, and you kind of have to think for a while before you figure out what kind of evolutionary advantages those might confer.
> ...


You make a lot of extrapolations, based on the theory of universal descent, but all the conclusions are speculations.  You have no evidence that the things you claim 'happened!' CAN happen.  You merely assert that it did. You cannot repeat it, or observe it. You can only believe it,  which makes it a matter of faith.

Show me. Provide ONE observable, scientific study that has demonstrated the genetic changes you assert can happen. Show me ONE new organism,  with a different genetic structure from its parents. You cannot.. but not from lack of trying, money, spin, and misinformation. You assert this process or phenomenon is a plainly evident occurrence,  yet we have never observed it, in thousands of years of experimental breeding. 

Organisms devolve,  as less genetic information is available.  They do not create new traits, but live with what was handed to them by their ancestors,  or go extinct. THAT is observable reality. Muddling that with techno babble,  other worldly fantasies,  and dazzling unbased assertions cannot change scientific reality. 

The theory of universal common descent is a belief,  ONLY. There is no scientific evidence to support it.

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## usfan

> Hm, thought I heard a noise.
> 
> Food for thought:
> 
> There are 3 billion base pairs in the human genome. Each gene has maybe 30,000 on average.
> 
> Question: could you build a human with 10,000 genes?


It seems you are stuck with the Lego block, pop view of genetics,  where all genetic information is the same, across genetic lines, and we merely rearrange them to form different structures.

But that is a flawed,  but common misconception,  promoted by the True Believers in universal descent. 

Each chromosome is unique to each phylogenetic structure,  and their genes are unique to each genome. 



Each genetic structure is its own 'language,' and cannot communicate with others. THAT is why you cannot import a chimp gene into a human, or mix them in any way, in spite of the claim that they are our relatives. If they were, like dogs, cats, horses, etc, you would expect the ability to mix the genes, or have some degree of reproduction,  like lions and tigers,  or donkeys and horses. THESE organisms share a common genetic structure,  and have evidence of ancestry. But you cannot merely extrapolate the evidenced relationship between equids, felids, or canids, and project that onto hominids.  .. unless you close your eyelids and believe real hard..   :Smile: 

It does not matter how many genes you have. YOU cannot create anything. Life can only come from life. Nobody can toss some genes together and animate life, in spite of all the movies that say otherwise.

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## nonsqtr

lol  :Smile: 

Speak English! You'd like to know how to change an arm into a wing? Here, read:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656784/

Meanwhile, your logic is seriously flawed. I, of course, am life. Therefore if I create something, it is merely life creating life.

You're so confused that your statement contradicts your fundamental assumption. If all life is the same, then there's no difference between me creating it, and God creating it.

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## nonsqtr

Read more: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/...ake-over-world

This crustacean has more DNA than a human being, yet reproduces asexually. All its offspring are identical clones of itself. This creature was entirely unknown before the year 1995.

Think, now. This is a case of a sexually reproducing creature, EVOLVING into an asexually reproducing one. Quickly. Rapidly.

And filling an environmental niche that way.

It's a sub-"species" because it's sufficiently distinct, but in every other way it's just a crawfish.

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## usfan

> lol 
> 
> Speak English! You'd like to know how to change an arm into a wing? Here, read:
> 
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656784/
> 
> Meanwhile, your logic is seriously flawed. I, of course, am life. Therefore if I create something, it is merely life creating life.
> 
> You're so confused that your statement contradicts your fundamental assumption. If all life is the same, then there's no difference between me creating it, and God creating it.


Your ad hominem has not refuted anything I said. 

..and, a link is not a rebuttal.  ..neither is 'read a book!' Those are fallacies for someone with no facts, science,  reason,  or arguments. 

Let me know when you, or anyone,  'builds' a human, Dr. Frankenstein.  Gather as many or few genes that you want. Compile the parts. You still cannot animate life, from non life.

The movies and sci fi books say otherwise,  but one must differentiate between facts and fiction,  if one is using the scientific method.

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## usfan

> Read more: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/...ake-over-world
> 
> This crustacean has more DNA than a human being, yet reproduces asexually. All its offspring are identical clones of itself. This creature was entirely unknown before the year 1995.
> 
> Think, now. This is a case of a sexually reproducing creature, EVOLVING into an asexually reproducing one. Quickly. Rapidly.
> 
> And filling an environmental niche that way.
> 
> It's a sub-"species" because it's sufficiently distinct, but in every other way it's just a crawfish.


Circular reasoning,  and assuming evolution.  There is no proof, or evidence that this crustacean 'evolved!' frm another, it is just assumed, without evidence. 

And even if it did modify to reproduce asexually, it still has not changed in its basic genetic structure.  It is still a crawdad, not a fish, or a lemming.

I'm sure evidence will be forthcoming,  that will clarify the tabloid journalism headlines, and perhaps it will be shown to be a variant of crayfish. 

Nobody disputes that organisms vary within their genetic parameters. The dispute is that they change in their structural architecture.. becoming a distinctly different organism, with newly created genes and restructured chromosomes.

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12icer (03-08-2021),Authentic (03-01-2021)

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## nonsqtr

> It does not matter how many genes you have. YOU cannot create anything. Life can only come from life. Nobody can toss some genes together and animate life, in spite of all the movies that say otherwise.


Sigh. 

It's already been done.

That was about 10 years ago.

I keep telling you, you need to read more.

Scientist Craig Venter creates life for first time in laboratory sparking debate about 'playing god' - Telegraph

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## nonsqtr

Here - I have a minute, so this is for @usfan.

What I think we should talk about, and you should probably read about first, is something called cell cycle regulation.

There are regulatory proteins that regulate the cell cycle, and of course they are under control of the DNA. When a single cell is fertilized, it only grows "so" big before it divides. Most human cells might be 10 microns big, but parameciums go up to like a mm. So what is it that keeps a human cell "small"? (That's a better question than what makes a paramecium big).

And the answer, it turns out, is an interesting interplay between chemical gradients inside the cytoplasm of the cell, physical stresses introduced and maintained by the cytoskeletal structure including actin and tubulin, and cell cycle regulatory proteins.

You can read about something called CDK1 in humans, although a lot more is known about its more primitive analogs (like Cdc2 in yeast). There are mutations that will make cells bigger or smaller, and the cell size can also be changed chemically in the laboratory.

As far as which end of the cell is the head and which is the tail, there are "cell polarity factors" which are also proteins, and also under control of the DNA. (In the yeast I mentioned, Pom1 is differentially distributed across the inside of the cell).

In complex organisms, there are "growth factors", which control relative development. These are also proteins, under control of the DNA. mTOR has been well-studied, it regulates translation and cell division. But large muscles still get bigger synapses, with or without the growth factors.

Evolution is highly logical, and highly illogical. As you would expect with a system built by trial and error, it ends up being layers cobbled on top of each other. And the things that are being processed, may or may not correspond to what we would consider logical, and may not correspond to the best engineering approach either. However what will generally be true, is that biology will model the physical universe. So for example in the retina, there is nothing that takes derivatives. But there is a whole separate Channel consisting of wholly separate cells and pathways, that processes motion, independently of color, and independently of contrast.

Really... the biochemistry of fossils is probably the very last thing we're going to understand. However this business of creating mutant frogs by sticking a pin in a tadpole at the right time, is easily explainable. And any Tom Dick and Harry could do it in the laboratory. Enough people have done this by now, that we can actually create specific types of "properties" in the germ cells, which are then transmitted to the offspring and future generations.

Study cell growth and the cell cycle. That's where you will begin to get a glimmer of the genius behind evolution.  :Wink:

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## nonsqtr

Oh gee, lookie what I found:

Black hole information paradox - Wikipedia

Ta-da. (pats self on back). It's always nice to know you're on the right track.

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## nonsqtr

> Oh gee, lookie what I found:
> 
> Black hole information paradox - Wikipedia
> 
> Ta-da. (pats self on back). It's always nice to know you're on the right track.


Oops, wrong thread. (Or maybe it's a sign from God lol)  :Smile:

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## usfan

> Sigh. 
> 
> It's already been done.
> 
> That was about 10 years ago.
> 
> I keep telling you, you need to read more.
> 
> Scientist Craig Venter creates life for first time in laboratory sparking debate about 'playing god' - Telegraph


Bullshit.
Nobody has created anything resembling life.. real, replicating, reproducing life. Proteins or amino acids are not life.

.. and fuck you and your ad hominem.  If you want to be insulting, why pussyfoot around?  Be a sincere asshole and go right to the 'fuck you' stage.

 :Middle Finger:

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## usfan

That's why mosh pit threads about science,  philosophy,  or religion don't work. You cannot keep them topical,  and someone will start needling and provoking a flame war. 

I tried to start a thread with strict rules for debate,  but the militant atheists would have nothing to do with it. So all we have is fallacies, flames, and reality show hysteria.

Sorry for my reply.. I should know better than to bicker with irrational fools,  at their level.  No more scientific discussion here, for me. It is too frustrating.

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## Authentic

Evolution is caused by hackers?

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## Authentic

> I say, let a teacher explain it:


They killed Kenny!

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## Authentic

The bastards!.

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Oceander (03-01-2021)

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## Authentic

> Hm, thought I heard a noise.
> 
> Food for thought:
> 
> There are 3 billion base pairs in the human genome. Each gene has maybe 30,000 on average.
> 
> Question: could you build a human with 10,000 genes?


I thought that you said that there is no average genome.

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## Oceander

What does it take for "minor" changes in the genes to translate into macroscopic changes in organisms that can result in a modified organism being labeled as a "new" organism?

Time, lots and lots and lots and .... and lots of time.  Funny thing is, that's precisely one of the resources in abundance.

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## Robert Urbanek

> _These people flagellate themselves, they hit themselves in the face, they poke themselves in the eye...
> 
> There may be a related Three Stooges mutation._


I did not post this.

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## East of the Beast

> What does it take for "minor" changes in the genes to translate into macroscopic changes in organisms that can result in a modified organism being labeled as a "new" organism?
> 
> Time, lots and lots and lots and .... and lots of time.  Funny thing is, that's precisely one of the resources in abundance.


Aw yes......the millions and millions and millions of years explanation.......trouble is we ain't been around that long.

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## East of the Beast

Simple question from a simple man.....why can't life be reproduced in a lab?.....Why can't the whiz kids of smart take all of the elements that make up the human body....build a flesh and blood replica and then animate it to be a thinking self aware being?

I know there's all the excitement about self aware technology....the rise of the machines as it were....but that is not life it is an imitation of life.

Heck there is another thought.....bulid a baby robot and program it to physically grow and mature into an adult.

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12icer (03-08-2021)

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## Oceander

> Aw yes......the millions and millions and millions of years explanation.......trouble is we ain't been around that long.


Which "we" is that?  The human species has been around for quite a long time.  The precursors to homo sapiens were around for longer than that.  More than sufficient time for evolution to work.

Limited imagination is not an adequate refutation of the facts.

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MisterVeritis (03-07-2021)

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## nonsqtr

> What does it take for "minor" changes in the genes to translate into macroscopic changes in organisms that can result in a modified organism being labeled as a "new" organism?
> 
> Time, lots and lots and lots and .... and lots of time.  Funny thing is, that's precisely one of the resources in abundance.


I can answer that. Or at least provide an example.

But first, define "new". How far apart does one have to be from another to be "new"?

Examples abound among primitive creatures like earthworms, sea slugs, that kind of thing.

Advanced creatures are a little more problematic, we see duplication of entire chromosomes and all kinds of stuff we don't understand yet. The lower organisms get zapped with low level mutations all the time, so they evolve more quickly and more frequently. The advanced organisms have protection mechanisms, so they don't get zapped as frequently or as severely, but when something gets through it causes big time disruption - so we end up seeing mutations that exist in "pockets", they're like little internal evolutionary niches where things can hide out till they turn into something useful.

Like I said before, most of what "we" see as shape is artefactual, for instance there's a straight corral that's identical to a foliated corral except for one gene but it's classified as a different species because it "looks" different, because the gene has more than one role.

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## nonsqtr

Still no one gets the point?

Let's review a little history. Charles Darwin's book was published in 1854, right around the time of our Civil War. But the modern theory of biological evolution begins with Oparin and Haldane in the 1920's.

Alexander Oparin - Wikipedia

J. B. S. Haldane - Wikipedia

Following that, it took another 30 years till the Miller-Urey experiments.

MillerâUrey experiment - Wikipedia

The Miller-Urey experiments created more than 20 amino acids, but no nucleotides. In 1961 Joan Oro demonstrated the synthesis of adenine from cyanide, and the rest is history.

Today, we have a complete chronology of the "Primordial Soup".

There have been some reasonably sophisticated experiments that replicate freeze-thaw cycles with and without electrical activity, and with or without cyclic hydrocarbons, that succeeded in generating lengthy chains of amino acids and nucleotides, as well as micelles with trapped nucleotide polymers.

None of this is in doubt. You can replicate the experiments in your own living room.

Next let's talk about proteins, and what exactly they are and what they do. For instance let's talk about DNA polymerase. That's ubiquitous, even bacteria have it. Do you know what it looks like? How many amino acids does it take to make such an enzyme? What is the probability of such an enzyme forming randomly in a primordial soup?

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## nonsqtr

> Simple question from a simple man.....why can't life be reproduced in a lab?.....Why can't the whiz kids of smart take all of the elements that make up the human body....build a flesh and blood replica and then animate it to be a thinking self aware being?
> 
> I know there's all the excitement about self aware technology....the rise of the machines as it were....but that is not life it is an imitation of life.
> 
> Heck there is another thought.....bulid a baby robot and program it to physically grow and mature into an adult.


Life can and has been created FROM SCRATCH in the laboratory.

But you toss around the word "human" like it were nothing.

A human being has 100 billion nerve cells.

A bacterium has ZERO.

Yet the bacterium still senses food and hovers over it so it can consume it.

Do you realize how complex a bacterium is? And a human has... y'know... a few trillion of them.

Do you want me to show you how to solve a Schramm-Loewner equation in three dimensions?

Or would you rather start simple by understanding how to calculate the probability of a chemical reaction occurring in a soup?

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## CWF

I have a friend who has an IQ higher than a kite can fly.  He is considered to be a genius by that scale and I have no doubt whatsoever that he is very intelligent. Even so, he hangs on to evolution like a child clutching a parent when first encountering a swimming pool.  He maintains that God is a myth, atheism is true, and if there were more people like Richard Dawkins mankind would benefit immensely.

Someone once said that stupid cannot be taught.  Well, it can, and it is.  Science and religion are both guilty of teaching courses in order to advance it. All one need do is accept what the professionals 'teach'.  In both.  

The point?  Fools often do have high IQ.

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## nonsqtr

> I have a friend who has an IQ higher than a kite can fly.  He is considered to be a genius by that scale and I have no doubt whatsoever that he is very intelligent. Even so, he hangs on to evolution like a child clutching a parent when first encountering a swimming pool.  He maintains that God is a myth, atheism is true, and if there were more people like Richard Dawkins mankind would benefit immensely.
> 
> Someone once said that stupid cannot be taught.  Well, it can, and it is.  Science and religion are both guilty of teaching courses in order to advance it. All one need do is accept what the professionals 'teach'.  In both.  
> 
> The point?  Fools often do have high IQ.


The only foolish question is the one that isn't asked.

There may be "better" questions but one has to start somewhere.

I choose to discover HOW GOD WORKS. Rather than asserting my anthropomorphic arrogance and pretending I know.

I feel sorry for you if you choose to butt heads with God.

And yes, the language of science is the language of God. Pollute it with politics (which is a human endeavor) at your own risk.

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## 12icer

When do we see the small animal created by synthesis. 
For all of the bark synthesis is not life. 

You can create a new virus, amoeba, all kinds of things but to say a chemical structure even one that is able to move and talk is Life AHHH. 

As there is the AI, is AI life? it has a lot of the characteristics of life, but it has not been accepted as life YET you must go to the actual definition of what you view as life.

 Abortionist say a child is not life even as they are murdered while taking their first breath. 

Chemicals can do many things they can replicate, they can grow, they can multiply and they can mutate, morph, and they can EXOLVE into different complex chemical structures. Depends on the environment they are introduced to.

But just because 99.7 percent of scientist call something life or not life does not make it a fact. Just their OPINION, and we know what those are like.  

I do not buy the evolution THEORY because of the odds involved. Just way too short for me. what is it 100 quadrillion 'google' to 1.

I believe in genetics as an observative science but I also think people are way over their heads with the idea they can actually control their experiments long term.

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## Authentic

> Sigh. 
> 
> It's already been done.
> 
> That was about 10 years ago.
> 
> I keep telling you, you need to read more.
> 
> Scientist Craig Venter creates life for first time in laboratory sparking debate about 'playing god' - Telegraph


He took an existing bacterium, gutted its genetic information, and replaced it with an engineered genome. How is that creating new life?

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## CWF

It is evident that rights such as Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, as stated by the Declaration of Independence, are not nearly as important to people as Security is.

We all must make a living and do so in various fields of endeavor. Science and scientists are the subject and unfortunately many of those engaged in it obviously suppose that they are intellectually superior to a fry cook or a used car sales person. That of course is not true at all. Those engaged in scientific study have the commonality that all of us do, and that is we answer to somebody. We have bosses.  We have superiors.  We have colleagues.  We have friends and associates. And many of us have family, children and so forth, that depend on us to care and provide for, to give a sense of security.

It is difficult to provide security if one is not secure in their profession. Scientists, like all people, need the support of others. Nobody wants to write a paper, let alone a book, about some scientific study they did and not have it well received by their peers, but ridiculed by them? Praise and honor are values.  Not scorn, not scoffing, not ridicule. Security comes from belonging to the club, by making the Superiors proud to have you on the Team.

Security always comes first. It may be false, but it is first. Scientific study is no exception.

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## Dubler9

There is no skeletal evidence of mid development, evolved animals. For example; Millions of birds unable to fly? This is their most vulnerable time, predators can easily kill them. Where are the bones? There are plenty of bones pertinent to birds with wings. Presumably it took millions of years, while "birds" were walking around unable to fly until wings evolved?? I would expect gazillion tons of skeletal evidence.

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Authentic (03-09-2021)

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