Evolution in Action

by: Natasha Chart

Tue Mar 03, 2009 at 10:00


I was tempted by a book the other day, its title was "Why Evolution Is True". Last night, I read the short version of that book in a news story entitled, "Resistance to flu drug widespread in U.S. - study":

Virtually all cases of the most common strain of flu circulating in the United States now resist the main drug used to treat it, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Monday.

CDC researchers said 98 percent of all flu samples from the H1N1 strain were resistant to Roche AG's ... Tamiflu, a pill that can both treat flu and prevent infection. ... Last flu season, only 19 percent of H1N1 viruses tested were Tamiflu-resistant, Dr. Nila Dharan and colleagues at the CDC reported. ...
Natasha Chart :: Evolution in Action
You introduce a selection event, a euphemism for wiping out or preventing the reproduction of part of a population, and the organisms that can still pass on their genes make up a larger percentage of the next generation. Sometimes, a much larger percentage.

It so happens with disease organisms, bacteria and viruses, that an adaptation to a drug might not accompany other traits that make it very dangerous. For example, even though hospitals are breeding grounds for drug-resistant infections that can be very dangerous to immune-compromised patients, they haven't been major sources of public disease epidemic outbreaks. It turns out that being immune to antibiotics (or antivirals) doesn't necessarily increase human-to-human transmissibility, virulence in a healthy host, or resistance to the elements. Sometimes, it does.

Whichever organisms survive and reproduce in prevailing conditions, they go on to the next round. Along with all their flaws, their genetic baggage, everything that didn't prevent them from surviving. A population might be wiped out by a selection event, or it could end up becoming even better at acquiring energy and food resources. This doesn't produce perfect creatures, but it works fairly well at generating adapted populations, and eventually, their competition.

Mmm, evolution.

Oh yeah, and ask your doctor about a flu shot if you're in an at-risk population for the flu. Apparently it's still, though not perfect, one of the better defenses.

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Evolution in Action | 59 comments
my sentiments exactly (4.00 / 3)
http://www.bleedingheartland.c...

one of my pet peeves is when people claim not to believe in evolution. I always want to ask them, "Do you believe bacteria can sometimes become resistant to antibiotics? Because if you do, you believe in natural selection."

MyDD user wegerje alerted me to a Doonesbury cartoon on this subject:

http://www.answersingenesis.or...

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

they have a dodge for this (4.00 / 3)
By creating an arbitrary distinction between "micro" and "macro" evolution they claim that bacteria can evolve, but you'll never see an elk become an elephant or whatever major species transition which they claim don't happen.


[ Parent ]
Interesting (0.00 / 0)
I have heard the "micro" and "macro" evolution distinction used to divide spontaneous generation (life from non-life) and natural selection (changing life over time), where macro is the former and micro the latter, but never in the way you describe.

To me, the whole debate is about apples and oranges. Creationists are talking about how life got started in the first place, and evolutionists are talking about how life changes over time. Any scientific evidence explaining how life got started in the first place? Not so much. As far as I know Pasteur's experiment is still going on, and still no spontaneous generation.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
not apples and oranges at all (4.00 / 1)
If only creationists restricted themselves to the exact how of life's first spark.

Besides, evolutionists are as you note looking for how life may have started.  If they figure it out, will creationists fold up their shop and go home?  Unlikely.

The battle between prescriptive ignorance and illuminated knowledge will not be over soon.

[ Parent ]
No, they'll say (4.00 / 1)
that life in the lab is created by an intelligent mind (the scientists), which doesn't show that life can the be result of unintelligent processes.

Not saying the responses are good...

(I deal with this stuff a lot.)

[ Parent ]
I still see the apples and oranges (0.00 / 0)
But you make a good point about the creationists not restricting their belief system to the first spark of life.

Just that I don't see how anyone plans to progress on the issue until we sort out exactly what the questions are. It simply not true that evolution is inconsistent with creationism, but in the public sphere that's the story we get.

The nuns and priests in the catholic school I attended in my youth had no problem making these distinctions. They understood that science has done very little to explain how life came from non-life and in fact, the concept of spontaneous generation is considered antithema in scientific circles. So they stuck to that position: God made humans. If life changed over time, then well, that was all part of God's plan.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
Does anyone have a complete list of the science that has to wrong for 'creationists' to feel ok about their myhtology? (0.00 / 0)


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
Its not only creationists (4.00 / 1)
that cling to mythologies.

If I implied that the science is wrong, I apologize. Attributing scientific justification to mythological suppositions is the part that bugs me. It bugs me when someone uses the term "Creation Science" to cover up their attempt to make belief the equivalent of rational experimentation, and it bugs me when people try to use organic chemistry and chance to do the same thing about their belief that the universe was ever devoid of life.

I try to be very clear when I state my BELIEF that life is as unavoidable an aspect of the universe as is gravity, or mathematics. The mystics have it basically right, Life is a force. It no needed to be "created" than did any matter/energy. I can't prove it. It ain't science. Its a belief system that does not have a "god" at the center. No more. No less.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
I like your world view. I like that life is a force. Its nice. (4.00 / 1)
 I like the star wars movies too, I felt a kinship to the idea that all living things could be connected.

I dont believe in the movies though. It is my moral and ethical belief that humans and life itself are sacred. The only evidence is poetical, and it is based on the close study of children's faces and the application of nonsense words and fingertips to armpits in repeated patterns. I am sure of my discovery. The best part is, it is a valid test that you can repeat. You will find hat I am right. I haven't published yet, but I have seen peers testing my hypothesis.


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
"evolutionists are talking about how life changes over time" (4.00 / 1)
Not if you read Dawkins or Dennett. Both argue quite persuasively how the dynamics of "cumulative selection" over the great expanse of geological time produced life on the planet. Dawkins from The Blind Watchmaker:
"Organic molecules, some of them of the same general types as are normally found in living things, have spontaneously assembled themselves in [controlled chemical experiments]. The missing link is still the origin of replication. The building blocks haven't come together to form a self-replicating chain like RNA. Maybe one day they will. ... How long would we have to wait before random chemical events, random thermal jostling of atoms and molecules, resulted in a self-replicating molecule?"


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[ Parent ]
They have no evidence for that position (4.00 / 2)
The question of how life began is still a matter of faith - faith in god, or faith in chemistry and statistics.

On the other hand, there are piles of evidence for evolution.



"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
I know its great to have everyone have a right to an opinion. (0.00 / 0)
I support that. But stating things that aren't understood as if you had studied them is isn't science, doesn't contribute to knowledge.

I kinda feel like gravity might be a wave form.


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
And what is the "evidence" for the theory of gravity? (0.00 / 0)
The "chemistry and statistics" that you equate to "faith" is called science.

Save Our Schools! March & National Call to Action, July 28-31, 2011 in Washington, DC: http://www.saveourschoolsmarch...
[ Parent ]
Gravity is proven by engineering (4.00 / 1)
It works.

Evolution has been proven the same way - there are products for sale today that are based on engineering the principles laid out by evolutionary science. Yes, even at the species level. It used to be called animal husbandry and the emphasis is generally placed on stockyard animals. But, if you have few moments, look into Fancy Mice, or Dog Breeding. That's evolution in practice. Its no longer a theory because we build machines based on the principles and they work. Reproducibly.

The concept that, somehow, life can be derived from non-living elements remains a theory because it has yet to be tested in the real world laboratories and factories. Yes, we can swap the parts of living things around, but no one has yet made life spring forth where it was not. As far as I know, the idea that there is no such thing as spontaneous generation is still the rule in science.  It was when I was in undergrad, and I'm sure that had someone managed to actually create life, it would have made the news.

But, yes, you are correct. At the root science is a belief system. You have to believe that statistics and logic are actually fundamental principles of the entire universe. It is far from proven.  

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
Micro (4.00 / 1)
Actually, they don't use the term micro-evolution anymore.  From AIG:

However, the term 'micro-evolution' would be best expunged, because, as shown, Johnson has correctly pointed out that the issue is not small vs big changes, but whether the changes add new genetic information. But this key issue is often obscured by evolutionists' word-plays:

'Textbooks typically define evolution not as information-creation but merely as change-either "change over time" or "change in gene frequencies"' (p. 43).

Bacteria are often researched in the hope of finding empirical evidence for evolution, due to their rapid reproduction rates. However,

'When a mutation makes a bacterium resistant to antibiotics, for example, it does so by disabling its capacity to metabolize a certain chemical. There is a net loss of information and of fitness in a general sense, but there is a gain in fitness in specific toxin-filled environments' (p. 46).


[ Parent ]
That's exactly what you hear. (4.00 / 2)
You can find it in all the apologetics texts, too.  The classic case of "micro" evolution is the darkening of moths in the UK during the Industrial Revolution.  So you get, it is claimed, modifications within species, but no change from one species to another.  (This is one reason why they deny a priori there are no transitional fossils.)
[ Parent ]
What they're showing is how little they understand evolution (0.00 / 0)
Darwin never said that natural selection changes one species to another. People didn't "evolve from apes."

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[ Parent ]
Reall? did he? no kidding. (0.00 / 0)
So Darwin said species don't change did he? Can you give me the paragraph and volume?

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
Im still looking for that. (0.00 / 0)
I'm looking in his book "On the Origin of Species" (published 24 November 1859) which many consider a seminal work in scientific literature and a landmark work in evolutionary biology.

I'm sure its in there though, you wouldn't just be saying such things.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
not talking about Darwin specifically (4.00 / 3)
but as a general note, it's a misconception that humans evolved from chimpanzees or gorillas. To be accurate, biology states that humans and chimps had a common ancestor at some point in the past, and humans, chimps and gorillas had a more ancient common ancestor.


"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
-Lawrence Summers
[ Parent ]
Correct (0.00 / 0)
And natural selection does not "change a species into another." Natural selection creates variation within a species that can eventually, but not always, through adaptation and over an expanse of geological time create divergence of species. Thus, those people looking for "transitional fossils" as evidence of evolution are looking for evidence that evolutionist concede isn't there.

Save Our Schools! March & National Call to Action, July 28-31, 2011 in Washington, DC: http://www.saveourschoolsmarch...
[ Parent ]
Transitional fossils (4.00 / 3)
Transitional fossils have indeed been found.

We've even found the modern-day descendants of transitional creatures, like the amphioxus, which is the nearest link between invertebrates and vertebrates. It's held to be the descendant of a sedentary sea creature with free-swimming larvae, a population of which is believed to have stopped transitioning to their adult form and simply remained free-swimming for life. Among its very innovative features is a tail longer than its digestive system.

There's no reason to concede anything.

[ Parent ]
True, true (0.00 / 0)
But my understanding is that the types of "transitional fossils" that creationists are saying they need as proof of evolution are much more obvious than this; that they expect paleontologists to uncover a fossil fish with, quite literally, arms and legs sticking out of it.

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[ Parent ]
The fossile exists, with arms and legs. Exactly. (0.00 / 0)


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
"Tiktaalik" (tic-TAH-lick)-the word in the Inuktikuk language for "a large, shallow water fish." (0.00 / 0)
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/...

This is a link to the specific fossil you require.


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
Just wrong. Species are created by evolution. (0.00 / 0)
a species is an ideal group of individuals which are believed to have descended from common ancestors, which agree in essential characteristics, and are capable of indefinitely continued fertile reproduction through the sexes. A species, as thus defined, differs from a variety or subspecies only in
the greater stability of its characters and in the absence of individuals intermediate between the related groups.

We are speaking of science, not stuff you like to think about.

Let me put it this way: There are about thirty different origin myths listed in the wikipedia, and there are [probably another seventy major myths that arent included if you allow oral traditions and hot contested sub domains of stories, which one do you think is the most true? And what system do you use to differentiate the stories from one another? Do you use science? Does science have a methodology?

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
Once again, your ability to totally misread what I posted is astonishing (0.00 / 0)
Have I said anywhere that species are not created by evolution? But I'll give you this much, at least the subject line of your comment, although a misreading of my comment, made sense. The comment that follows, OTOH, is totally incoherent.  

Save Our Schools! March & National Call to Action, July 28-31, 2011 in Washington, DC: http://www.saveourschoolsmarch...
[ Parent ]
I am sorry we are in a point debate. (0.00 / 0)
That is not my purpose. The incoherent paragraph is an attempt to have the reliance on science as the only way to determine whta we rae talking about made explicit. There is no other way to determine whats going on, to eliminate the untrue, to discover whats false than through the scientific method. Using ones gut, or even ones logic is not enough. Its feels right, I have figured out, or my opinion, do not matter. I am sorry if that was obscure, on re -read, I agree I was being obtuse.

On your points:

And natural selection does not "change a species into another."
This is wrong on its face. Species become new species. Bacteria becomes bacteria that can survive in salt water, becomes a species that can survive heat. etc etc. becomes an oak tree. This is science. If you learned differently I'm sorry. Education needs to become education.
Natural selection creates variation within a species that can eventually, but not always, through adaptation and over an expanse of geological time create divergence of species.

Yes as divergent as oak trees and cats.
Thus, those people looking for "transitional fossils" as evidence of evolution are looking for evidence that evolutionist concede isn't there.
This is wrong. It is not true. It is a fallacy. And biologists do not 'concede' this fallacy.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
As also cited above, the fossil you require. (0.00 / 0)
The evidence that you declare does not exist, that biologists  happily point to.

Fossil find fills evolutionary gap between fish, land animals.
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/...
University of Chicago

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
Please reread what I said (0.00 / 0)
I did not say "Darwin said species don't change." And as for proving that something isn't there by finding evidence of its lack of existence, well, I'm not a magician either.

Save Our Schools! March & National Call to Action, July 28-31, 2011 in Washington, DC: http://www.saveourschoolsmarch...
[ Parent ]
Could it be more clear what Darwin said? (0.00 / 0)
His book is called "On the Origin of Species" (published 24 November 1859) Now that might mean something other the origin of species, but its a poor name for a book then.

Darwin never said that natural selection changes one species to another. People didn't "evolve from apes."

The subject of Darwin's book is the origin of not just one species, but of all species, where species come from. That is, from one species to another.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
Variation among organisms is produced through the randomness of replication (0.00 / 0)
What Darwin brought to light is that the need for organisms to constantly adapt to their environment creates a process that selects the more adaptable variants to live on. No one had ever thought of this before and it was that revelation that explained the origin of species. But it's not natural selection alone that causes species to diverge. It takes the randomness of replication, the rigors of adaptation, and lots and lots of time. Of course, species have common ancestry, but what creationists want to see is a strictly linear line of development from one species transforming into another -- by growing an appendage let's say -- and Darwin never said that that  was the way evolution worked.

Save Our Schools! March & National Call to Action, July 28-31, 2011 in Washington, DC: http://www.saveourschoolsmarch...
[ Parent ]
Erm ... (4.00 / 1)
It takes the randomness of replication, the rigors of adaptation, and lots and lots of time.

That is part of natural selection. Those are some of the forces that shape it.

And what creationists say they want to see, with sequential transitional forms, is out there. The fossils are there, the molecular evidence is there. The problem is creationists' refusal to see it.

Scientists find one thing they say they were looking for, they ask for more. Then it gets found. No, they say, not enough.

Because not only have the fish to land fossils been found, but the hippo relative and whale ancestor fossil that represents a transition from land mammal back to ocean-dweller. The dinosaur-to-bird fossils have been found.

Everything started as bacteria and that's a fact. As Robert Anton Wilson might say, it requires as much belief as the claim that rocks exist.  

[ Parent ]
We can agree to disagree (4.00 / 1)
about our exact interpretations of Darwin. And as far as what creationists want from the fossil record, I'll admit to being perhaps ill-informed. But on your last point, I have no doubt about my agreement.

Save Our Schools! March & National Call to Action, July 28-31, 2011 in Washington, DC: http://www.saveourschoolsmarch...
[ Parent ]
Where did the bacteria come from? (4.00 / 1)
That's the part that requires some faith.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
Genesis (4.00 / 2)
Evolution explains how one form of life changes into other forms.  Evolution is completely mute on where the initial life forms came from.

While there are lots of guesses, thoughts and even a few theories, nothing is really understood.  There are clues, but no one has clearly solved the mystery.

[ Parent ]
You know what, I'd have to agree with them. (4.00 / 1)
You never will see an elk become an elephant.

But that doesn't have anything to with Darwinian evolution, of course.

[ Parent ]
language nit-picking (4.00 / 3)
I saw a talk from Eugenie Scott from the Nat'l center for science education. She made a point to state that she does not believe in evolution (gasp!) - because evolution and science in general are not the kinds of things that require belief. It's a completely different form of knowing, but the creationists want to confuse the issue by framing evolution as an alternative belief. They're approaching it this way because they think they can portray evolution as a failed alternative faith, when it's nothing of the sort.

Another pet peeve - using the term "Darwinism" - a rhetorical sleight of hand to associate Darwin with the likes of Marx, Lenin, etc.  and to portray evolution and biology as an ideology. Sure, some biologists (like me) may be ideological on, say, socioeconomic issues, but biology and science are NOT ideologies.

Of course the creationists and ID'ers are going to use this language, but it frustrates me that scientists aren't careful about the terms they use. For example, you will hear somebody say at a conference or journal club "Oh, I don't believe so-and-so's data". Or a scientist on TV defending "Darwinism". I think some scientists are learning from their errors, hopefully that continues.  

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
-Lawrence Summers

[ Parent ]
speaking of flu (4.00 / 1)
Saw this interesting new hypothesis:

http://www.reuters.com/article...

Strep infections and not the flu virus itself may have killed most people during the 1918 influenza pandemic, which suggests some of the most dire predictions about a new pandemic may be exaggerated, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

The findings suggest that amassing antibiotics to fight bacterial infections may be at least as important as stockpiling antiviral drugs to battle flu, they said.

Keith Klugman of Emory University in Atlanta and colleagues looked at what information is available about the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed anywhere between 50 million and 100 million people globally in the space of about 18 months.

Some research has shown that on average it took a week to 11 days for people to die -- which fits in more with the known pattern of a bacterial infection than a viral infection, Klugman's group wrote in a letter to the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

"We observed a similar 10-day median time to death among soldiers dying of influenza in 1918," they wrote.

People with influenza often get what is known as a "superinfection" with a bacterial agent. In 1918 it appears to have been Streptococcus pneumoniae.



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god hates humans (4.00 / 2)
This is not evidence of evolution, this is evidence that god hates humans and wants his chosen creatures, virii, to go forth and multiple in all thief glory.

I'm surprised that in none of the pieces I've seen written up on this news item that anyone has questioned if the over perscription  of tamiful was to blame. It seeems to me that virii evolve with or without anti-virals like tamiflu, however if anti-virals truely the driving force i  this evolutionary process then its time we limit their use to critical needs.  

Mark Twain (0.00 / 0)
always claimed mosquitoes were the chosen creatures, and we were put on earth to feed them. But a case could be made for virii.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
Or the ultra super wealthy (0.00 / 0)


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
For the record (0.00 / 0)
Nobody argues against this kind of evolution.  According to the smartest, most detailed creationists (yes, they exist), every creature is designed with a set of parameters.  Survival of the Fittest can adjust the parameters to a fairly large extent.  They even accept that a polar bear and a panda are the same 'kind' that evolved away from each other.

What the claim cannot happen is for the basic design to evolve.  A cat and a bear don't have a common ancestor.  A bear and a mushroom is way, way out.  That's their "theory".

I love creation stories. (0.00 / 0)
 They are very instructive about the societies that make them up. Some are fun to toss around in an ontological and epistemological way. One of the oldest of course comes from the acient civilizations in the Indian subcontinent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

In Hindu philosophy, the existence of the universe is governed by the Trimurti of Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Sustainer) and Shiva (the Destroyer). The sequence of Avatars of Vishnu - the Dasavatara (Sanskrit: Dasa-ten, Avatara-divine descents) is generally accepted by most Hindus today as correlating well with Darwin's theory of evolution i.e. the first Avatar generating from the environment of water. Hindus believe that the universe was created from the Word (Aum/OM) - the sacred sound uttered by every human being at the time of birth. The first five great elements or Panchamahabhuta (Sanskrit: Pancha-five + Maha-great + Bhuta-elements) are: Akasha, Vayu, Agni, Ap, and Prithvi.


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
those Indian cosmologies are so gloriously fecund (4.00 / 1)
In Jain cosmology, the age of the universe is measured in trillions of years. And in that supererogatory estimation, they turned out to be more accurate than anything conceived by western society until the 20th century.
[ Parent ]
Known creation myths significantly pre-date Hinduism. (0.00 / 0)
You could have just checked your own Wikipedia link. The earliest known is a Sumerian flood myth, from 18th C. BCE. "By the rivers of Babylon.."
[ Parent ]
I stand clarified. (0.00 / 0)
"One of the oldest" though often referrers to, well, one of the oldest. Not the oldest, not the first, just among the pack that hangs out on the corner where all the other really old 'stories of where we came' from like to hang.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
It's not anywhere close, however. (0.00 / 0)
Especially given that the Eridu Genesis is the earliest known documented creation myth, and that an oral tradition would logically have predated the tablet.
         Certainly it's an oldie but goody, though.
[ Parent ]
okay (0.00 / 0)


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
Small changes over time (4.00 / 3)
It was actually Darwin's study of geology and the new geological theories of gradual change over time that gave him a lot of his ideas.

It used to be considered quite the outrageous idea that mountains and valleys hadn't been laid down just as they are by the Creator. Then geologists started finding evidence that the landscape didn't always look the same and they started putting the pieces together.

All the multicellular lifeforms are descended from a few lines of bacteria-eating bacteria and there's no two ways about it.  

[ Parent ]
No two ways about it. (0.00 / 0)


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
Where did the bacteria come from? (0.00 / 0)


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
If you are intersted you can study and experiment. (0.00 / 0)
If it is only a rhetorical question, then it does nothing to advance knowledge.

In the natural sciences, abiogenesis, or origin of life, is the study of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter. It should not be confused with evolution, which is the study of how living things change over time. Amino acids, often called "the building blocks of life", occur naturally, due to chemical reactions unrelated to life. In all living things, these amino acids are organized into proteins, and the construction of these proteins is mediated by nucleic acids. Thus the question of how life on Earth originated is a question of how the first nucleic acids arose.

Some facts about the origin of life are well understood, others are still the subject of current research. The first living things on Earth are thought to be single cell prokaryotes. The oldest ancient fossil microbe-like objects are dated to be 3.5 Ga (billion years old), just a few hundred million years younger than Earth itself.[1][2] By 2.4 Ga, the ratio of stable isotopes of carbon, iron and sulfur shows the action of living things on inorganic minerals and sediments[3][4] and molecular biomarkers indicate photosynthesis, demonstrating that life on Earth was widespread by this time.[5][6]

On the other hand, the exact sequence of chemical events that led to the first nucleic acids is not known. Several hypotheses about early life have been proposed, most notably the iron-sulfur world theory (metabolism without genetics) and the RNA world hypothesis (RNA life-forms).

This is not an answer, it is a begining. There many links, there are University courses and there research facilities. This is the same path that took the 'belief systems' around bloodletting and Trepanation to a medical system that replace your heart and repair your eyes. It is rigorous. It requires humility and dedication. It has nothing to do with what Steven Colbert calls truthyness. It isnt true because it feels right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
Exactly! (0.00 / 0)
"In the natural sciences, abiogenesis, or origin of life, is the study of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter. It should not be confused with evolution, which is the study of how living things change over time."

So, let's get the the root of the matter with the Creationists and stop getting distracted by the "argument" over evolution, for which there really is no substantive counter-argument.

On this question, science has very little to say, although somewhere between the Big Bang and Darwin's trip to the Galapagos, it seems to have caught on. So let's not congratulate ourselves too soon for having embarrassed the Creationists.

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
science has very little to say, (0.00 / 0)


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
Big changes (4.00 / 1)
Of course, this is actually where Darwin turned out to be somewhat incorrect.  Most known evolutionary changes actually happened fairly quickly followed by long periods of relative stability.  This discovery was a surprise.

Much like in politics where the biggest changes occur after a collapse of the old system for one reason or another, evolution occurs most dramatically after major shocks to the system.  We all know about the meteor that killed of the dinosaurs which lead to the rapid rise of birds and mammals, but there many other examples as well.

[ Parent ]
Classic Doonesbury (4.00 / 6)

Doonesbury  

Jeff Wegerson
Just breaking! The sun does not revolve around the earth! (4.00 / 1)
 Every knows the sun comes up in the morning! So what kind of bizarre attempt at confusion is this? Just explain to me what sunset means then smarty pants!

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Walking fish, are, of course still with us. (0.00 / 0)
As each lifeform's stage in evolution can and does continue if it is stable and in an enviromental niche it can survive in. Here is the first video of one of the many "walking fish."

And another.

And another, I particularly like the way this one holds onto rocks to keep itself in place.


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Evolution in Action | 59 comments
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