Inefficient Selection: New Evolutionary Mechanism Accounts For Some Of Human Biological Complexity

Inefficient Selection: New Evolutionary Mechanism Accounts For Some Of Human Biological Complexity

www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Nov. 4, 2009) — A painstaking analysis of thousands of genes and the proteins they encode shows that human beings are biologically complex, at least in part, because of the way humans evolved to cope with redundancies arising from duplicate genes.

"We have found a specific evolutionary mechanism to account for a portion of the intricate biological complexity of our species," said Ariel Fernandez, professor of bioengineering at Rice University.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Well, I didn't see this posted anywhere so I thought I would submit it.

Is this study another nail in the coffin of intelligent design? It goes into extreme detail charting genes and proteins in the human genome and shows how our complexity naturally and uneventfully evolved over time, instead of being planned by a creator.

The article goes on to explain that in complex, low population (compared to bacteria) organisms like humans that aren't quite beholden to Darwinian natural selection, duplicate genes that cause health problems are corrected over time when those genes themselves randomly mutate. This layering of gene mutation is what essentially allows complex organisms to exist.

From the article:

"In all organisms, genes get duplicated every so often, for reasons we don't fully understand," Fernandez said. "When working efficiently, natural selection eliminates many of these duplicates, which are called 'paralogs.' In our earlier work, we saw that an unusual number of gene duplicates had survived in the human genome, which makes sense given selection inefficiency in humans.

These are the potential roots for the emergence of novel protein-protein interactions, which are the hallmark of evolution in complex, multicellular species," Lynch said. "In other words, the origins of some key aspects of the evolution of complexity may have their origins in completely nonadaptive processes."
Fernandez said the research reveals how increasingly specialized proteins can evolve. He drew an analogy to a business that hires two delivery drivers that initially cover the same parts of town but eventually specialize to deliver only to specific neighborhoods.

It's interesting to think that something that may cause a disease like Alzheimer's can, in the long run, benefit our species by eventually causing a good mutation that actually cures the disease it caused.

If you do believe in intelligent design, how do you reconcile this information? Why would God(s) design us, mutate our genes to hurt millions over the course of generations, then correct the mistake in the design after a few millennium?

I'm not attacking ID, just asking some questions that I believe are relevant in light of this new evidence.

www.sciencedaily.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

because of the way humans evolved

owp, it said we evolved, so it must be true...

"We have found a specific evolutionary mechanism to account for a portion of the intricate biological complexity of our species," said Ariel Fernandez, professor of bioengineering at Rice University.

Whatever...

If you do believe in intelligent design, how do you reconcile this information?

Yeah, right, like someone would know 100%

Why would God(s) design us, mutate our genes to hurt millions over the course of generations, then correct the mistake in the design after a few millennium?

Maybe, he designed us, but wasn't the one who mutated our genes...

reply to post by Solofront


I don't think you really grasped what the article was saying. They analyzed thousands of genes and proteins and then traced them back through our genome and compared them to older genes and proteins.

owp, it said we evolved, so it must be true...

Are denying that humans have evolved and are evolving? That's a pretty ignorant claim to make. Our biological makeup has changed over the course of history, and we have evidence that shows it. So yes, it is true. Sorry!

Yeah, right, like someone would know 100%

Then why don't you try giving it 90%.

Maybe, he designed us, but wasn't the one who mutated our genes...

So the devil is a geneticist that tinkers with every human embryo before it develops into a person? And you think this article sounds ridiculous?

Originally posted by Solofront
owp, it said we evolved, so it must be true...

Solofront said we didnt evolve, so it must be true...

your argument was compelling nonetheless

i did read this article yesterday. i thought it was pretty interesting. it might not hurt ID (not that theres much to hurt), but it does lend even more support for evolution.









[edit on 5-11-2009 by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest]

First it assumes that life comes about by itself, which never happened.
To Christians, it makes sense that once God set the universe in place, that man would not be able to either create additional matter or even to be able to destroy any part of God's creation. Science confirms this. One of the bedrock principles of Physics is conservation of matter and energy.

Man can cause matter and energy to change form, but cannot increase or decrease the amount of matter in a closed system. This has been experimentally verified and observed over hundreds of years by science. Christians can afford to believe this but materialists cannot. They believe that all matter in the universe was "self created" in a big bang or other theory.

This of course not only conflicts with the 1st law, it of course cannot be experimentally verified. Who has the scientific high ground here? Those who believe God created the universe and set the 1st law in place.

Biogenesis means life genesis. That is, life has been shown and observed to only come from life. It has never been shown to come from non-life. Not only that, all observations show that life produces after its own kind. Scientific materialists have constructed elaborate theories to show how these principles could have been violated but, again the scientific high ground belongs to those who stick with the observed and verifiable scientific fact that life does not arise either from nothing or spontaneously by any known scientific or natural process.

Evolutionists have faith that this hurdle will be overcome but note; what they say happened by accident has never been recreated on purpose in a laboratory (or anywhere else)despite whatever headstarts or manipulations of the environment scientists have tried.

The fact is, those who hold beliefs such as these which say that life came from non-life, that the universe is self creating,etc. have to have strong faith like those in any religion have to have that what they believe is true, no matter that what they believe conflicts with basic scientific principles and laws.

These scientists believe in evolution on an a priori basis, even though there is no verified, workable mechanism for it to have been achieved. They embraced mutation working through natural selection, as a mechanism, then when that proved insufficient because of lack of fossil evidence they adapted punctuated equilibrium; a theory that says nothing much happens for a long time until bang, a whole bunch happens at once.

Why? No one knows. But the fossil record shows fully modern species appearing suddenly and changing very little or none at all. Now that there appear to be problems legitamizing punctuated equilibrium, a new theory called "hopeful monsters" apparently thought up as a mechanism of evolution by a seventh grader as a science project is getting more and more support.

If you believe in the genesis account of creation, then you have the first and second laws (entropy)of physics on your side. You have biogenesis on your side. You have statistics and the laws of probability on your side. You have basic observed science on your side.

If you believe in materialistic explanations for the origins of the universe, you will have to continue to have Faith that basic science is currently wrong and that although none of these materialistic theories can be verified experimentally, that someday you will nevertheless be proved right.

Good luck with that.

Originally posted by peaceonearth
First it assumes that life comes about by itself, which never happened.

...

They believe that all matter in the universe was "self created" in a big bang or other theory.

This of course not only conflicts with the 1st law, it of course cannot be experimentally verified. Who has the scientific high ground here? Those who believe God created the universe and set the 1st law in place.

Biogenesis means life genesis. That is, life has been shown and observed to only come from life. It has never been shown to come from non-life. Not only that, all observations show that life produces after its own kind.


The fact is, those who hold beliefs such as these which say that life came from non-life, that the universe is self creating,etc. have to have strong faith like those in any religion have to have that what they believe is true, no matter that what they believe conflicts with basic scientific principles and laws.

It does not assume that life comes about by itself. We dont know yet if it did, but if first life was created by god, it does not conflict with evolution.

Scientists also do not believe that matter-energy was "self-created" in a big bang. We dont know what happened. Also, big bang has no conflict with thermodynamics.

Those who believe that god created the universe have bigger problems than evolutionists - there is NO evidence of any god or supernatural force!

This is a very interesting article and I like the OP's interpretation. Star and flag, thank you.

One comment I have is that I don't think that evolution and intelligent design are necessarily incompatible. I don't see why intelligent design cannot happen at a cell / gene level, in tiny tiny steps, to try out different cell survival / reproduction strategies etc. Some modifications will work, some won't, but who is to say how the decisions on which modifications are kept and which are thrown away gets made?

It seems to me that natural selection occurs on so many different levels:

- We choose who to mate with based on who knows what subconscious decisions and assessments
- Only the fittest and most able sperm out of millions fertilizes the egg
- Not all offspring will survive and reproduce (particularly the case in harsher environments)
- During mitosis DNA selection takes place - we understand the mechanics but we don't understand whether the process is "random" or whether there is a purpose behind it (do we?)
- During an organism's life cycle cells continue to mutate during cell reproduction to better suit the environment

Until we can empirically prove that all gene mutation is completely "random", without pattern and without purpose, I think it's impossible to rule out intelligent design at the mitosis level.

But I have to say I only have a scant understanding of these things, so I'm happy to be disagreed with

reply to post by peaceonearth


This is a fantastic and well thought-out post, and very educational. Thank you.

reply to post by peaceonearth


Unfortunately there's a difference between believing in a theory and believing in a religion. A scientific theory has empirical and repeatable evidence to back up its claims whereas there is not one religion on Earth that has empirical and repeatable evidence of their god(s).

Scientists as a whole are completely open to new ideas and I'm sure would enthusiastically welcome radical changes to evolutionary theory and abiogenesis if such evidence was able to be presented. However, there isn't, so much of the push back you see from the scientific community comes from them feeling threatened that religious dogma might begin to influence scientific purity. When religion becomes intertwined with science, then we begin to see alterations to fact as they're distorted to blend with religion.

If you believe in the genesis account of creation, then you have the first and second laws (entropy)of physics on your side. You have biogenesis on your side. You have statistics and the laws of probability on your side. You have basic observed science on your side.

No, no you don't. I don't have time to reply to all of it, but it's not possible to create an accurate statistic or probability of a creator when there's no evidence of one or its influence in the first place. The statistical likelihood is 0 because there's no evidence it's ever happened and no known factors to cause it to happen.