Prior to this study, scientists have relied on more theoretical approaches such as bioinformatics to infer how new genes arise. Now they have demonstrated the evolution of a new gene experimentally. The team published their results on October 19.
The model explains how novelty is generated in evolution, which is "tremendously exciting," says Gavin Conant, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Missouri—Columbia who was not involved in the study. Whether the model will apply to organisms other than bacteria remains to be seen, but Conant says he would be very surprised if researchers do not eventually find the process in other systems. "They have a step-by-step documentation of the model, essentially proof that this can happen," he says.
Conant points out that we cannot hope to stay 40 years ahead of microbes when they can evolve new abilities in just a few years. But microbes aren't always working against us. If the model holds, it can give researchers insight to harnessing evolution's power—as bioengineers coax microbes to gobble oil spills, for example. Says Conant of the genome’s innovative abilities: "It reminds us again of just how powerful evolution is in microbes."
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Add CommentRe: "...[T]he venomous cocktail delivered by a platypus's spurs includes three peptides remarkably similar to an antimicrobial compound used in the critter's immune system. The venom molecules evolved from duplications of the gene that codes for an immune compound."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince no human observer was present for the origin of the platypus, what is the evidence that evolution produced these molecules?
Following the hyperlink, “evolved from duplications of the gene that codes for an immune compound,” provides access to the abstract which contains little more than the same assertion quoted above. The paper is only available at unacceptable cost.
@Bill_Crofut
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe don't need to personally be somewhere during the event in order to observe something. I sincerely hope you're not arguing otherwise.
I would wager the evidence is that there was an obvious gene duplication (homolog), the fact that there's a utility to the gene suggests differential fitness in a population where only some members have it expressed. That's all we need; a heritable change producing differential fitness. That's evolution.
nmlevesque,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is precisely my argument. Please explain to me how one can observe something in absentia.
Wagers and suggestions are not evidence. Is that the basis for evolution?
Natural selection resulted in a net loss of old information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf which I am aware, no spontaneous examples of beneficial mutation have ever been witnessed, above and beyond the deletion of old traits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe evolutionist worldview, itself, is arguably based on religious prejudices from the pagan mystery schools.
For future reference, Christians have no ostensible problem with the operational sciences, but I have no idea why this article was linked on a Christian site, without any provisos.
@Bill_Crofut
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDear Bill, the article you have commented is actually about the direct observation in laboratory of this mechanism of evolution from a duplicate gene. So the mechanism that was guessed figured out for the platypus from indirect evidences has been observed in an experiment. That's how science progress: look at things, guess how it works. Search for another way to verify.
pddelugas,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe experiment (p. 1, last para.) doesn't seem to me to be describing any observation of evolution in any meaningful sense of the term (a naturalistic occurrence). Rather, it seems to be describing the observation of a number of laboratory manipulations. Is my assessment incorrect?
Activation of the hyperlink, "team published their results" (p. 2, para. 1) provides an abstract, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6105/384.abstract,
which doesn't seem particularly informative.
The complete paper is only available at unacceptable cost:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/secure_ppv?jcode=sci&resource_id=sci;338/6105/384&type=ppv&ppv_type=article&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencemag.org%2Fcontent%2F338%2F6105%2F384.full
boletusp20,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding your comment 'no spontaneous examples of beneficial mutation have ever been witnessed'. The following article was recently published in Nature:
Blount, Z. D., J. E. Barrick, C. J. Davidson, and R. E. Lenski. 2012. Genomic analysis of a key innovation in an experimental Escherichia coli population. Nature 489:513-518
The authors applied selection to bacterial populations and observed evolution of novel function (i.e a beneficial mutation) that allowed them to metabolize citrate. The bacteria that gained this function became dominant in the bacterial population after a couple thousand generations. The authors can point exactly to the beneficial mutations that allowed this change.
Regarding your comment 'The evolutionist worldview, itself, is arguably based on religious prejudices from the pagan mystery schools'; this is a very big claim to casually throw out there without any support (I'm guessing you are trying to make the connection that evolution is somehow just another religious belief). I'll make an equally big claim that most evolutionary biologists have never heard nor thought about pagan mystery schools when formulating their 'worldviews'.
Bill_Crofut,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRE: 'Since no human observer was present for the origin of the platypus, what is the evidence that evolution produced these molecules?'
This is a very vague argument that could apply to any intellectual endeavor that attempts to understand phenomena that occurred before humans started keeping records. For instance, no humans were around to observe the origin of Hawaii, so what is the evidence that geological processes produced these islands? This question is only a problem for people who do not understand geology, just as your question is only a problem for people who do not understand evolution.
pjmtele,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince no human observers were present to witness the origin of Hawaii, the evidence that is observable concerning that origin must be interpreted. Are you aware of any interpretation that is testable?
Regarding evolution, it seems my inability to understand it puts me in some impressive company with at least one pair of evolutionary biologists:
"Our theory of evolution has become, as [philosopher of science, Karl R.] Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus 'outside of empirical science' but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training. The cure seems to us not to be a discarding of the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, but more skepticism about many of its tenets."
[L. C. Birch and Paul Ehrlich. 1967. Evolutionary History and Population Biology. NATURE, vol. 214, p. 352]
Bill_Crofut,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI replied to your first post because the question you are asking regarding evidence that evolution produces molecules is 1.) poorly stated and 2.) way too big of a question for this forum. If you truly want an answer to that question, you need to start with an introductory class in evolution not an online comments thread. I'm not getting dragged into a long debate because it is clear that you don't actually want answers to these questions. You are simply asking vague, broad questions to try to stump random people on the internet in hopes of validating your own views. And, you're not really in good company by failing to understand evolution. The article you cited is 45 years old, and the authors weren't even evolutionary biologists (they were ecologists). Also, they don't even suggest discarding the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, only skepticism, which has largely been rebuked over the past 45 years. I'll let you have the last word because nothing I can say could possibly make a difference.
pjmtele,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease accept my apology for asking a question that is too big for this forum. A suggestion made to me by a commentor on another web page was to study a text book on evolution. My request for a recommendation was not answered by the commentator to whom it was directed, but was answered by another:
“@Bill_Crofut–I believe that most textbooks used for the college level would be sufficient to answer your questions. A textbook used at my university is:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Mark-Ridley/dp/1405103450/ref=cm_lmf_tit_2
Evolution, Mark Ridley (Author)”
Is that what you have in mind?
Regarding the age of the Birch/Ehrlich quote, here’s one from Prof. Richard Lewontin that is more timely:
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.”
[1997. Billions and Billions of Demons. NY Times Book Reviews: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, Random House, January 9, http://www.drjbloom.com/Public%20files/Lewontin_Review.htm
Well there is much more evidence of how islands such as hawaii are formed, those structures such as volcanoes are around and we can observe them now. As for the evolution theory, there isnt very much we can go off of to prove evolution, and in my opinion there are many more things to disprove it. For one thing if we have evolved from monkeys why havent monkeys evolved, why are they not all humans.
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