Evolution is Fact

modest · 06-29-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

I found your post to be extremely difficult... if not impossible, to follow.
What do you mean by...

I've said before that I have a hard time understanding HB. Also, when asking HB to clarify I get no response. I've translated what he said below which is probably more of an interpretation. Did anyone else interpret it this way?

Quote:

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

I believe the evidence that suggests that humans evolved from apes. The fossil data seems very solid and reasonable. The question is, why did this occur? Evolution doesn't go this deep. It will use the same answer for dinosaurs, humans, or bacteria.

Fossil evidence strongly suggests that apes are the ancestors of humans. But, we need to understand the processes that made this happen. The theory of evolution doesn’t do a good enough job explaining the details of evolution. It is a broad theory that applies to macroscopic things like dinosaurs, humans, or bacteria.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Most genetic changes associated with evolution occur during cell cycles or when male and female genes combine. If you look at this closely, in both cases, the DNA is taken off-line when the evolution occurs. Whatever the DNA may have prepared, is no longer up to the DNA, when the actual genetic change occurs. We talk in terms of the genetic changes without realizing this occurs when DNA is a pawn.

The process of evolution however happens on the microscopic scale. The actual changes DNA undergoes during evolution are not caused by DNA but rather happen to DNA. We need to understand the environmental causes of mutation and their relationship to DNA. If we consider the agent of evolution to be "environmental causes of mutation" rather than the agent of evolution to be "random mutation of DNA" - then we may see things from an entirely new perspective.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

For example, when the DNA is duplicated in a bacteria, the DNA has to be taken off-line for duplication and mitosis. It is inert and subject to the cell body. Say the environment causes the cell body to absorb too much of chemical X, when the DNA is taken off-line, the cell body has a potential different than the old DNA can create in terms of proteins. One might expect the potential for something to change to lower this potential. There is a natural cause and affect that evolution lumps into random.

It may be found that certain chemicals when exposed directly to DNA have a tendency to change proteins in a predictable way. Understanding this may reveal a cause and effect relationship that could change our perspective from saying “mutation is random” to saying “these specific environmental factors lead to this kind of mutation”

Quote:

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Where the problem lies may be the unproven evolutionary assumption of genetic replicators coming first. This may be true, but it is unproven. But if we except this unproven premise it sets the conceptual mindset the DNA is king and never a pawn. To add the pawn angle will allow a better handle on cause and affect. It will still be evolution, but version 3.0 is different and may come in conflict with aspects of version 2.0.

This will not change the nature of evolution - it will still be evolution. But, we may understand it better.

Is this what you meant HB?

~modest

HydrogenBond · 06-29-2008

Red blood cells can be alive without the requirement of DNA. They can't replicate without DNA, but can exhibit all the rest of life requirements. But DNA can not do much of anything without a cell body. It is dead meat. The DNA is designed to be extremely stable, or inert.

Based on that simple observation, the cell body is what is alive and therefore is higher in life's hierarchy. The DNA is more like the hard drive of a computer. It stores programs, data and bad sectors. We can take the hard drive out of red blood cells and they will use the mother board. There was an experiment that claimed life, but all they did was change the hard drive, which is a feat in itself.

If we get back to evolution the mutations that are most often associated with evolution are connected to reproduction. During this part of all cell cycles the DNA hard drive is off-line. The cell body is still alive. It comes down to which assumption is valid, either the DNA changes randomly or whether the living cell body treats the DNA as part of an internal adaptation based on a stress that needs to be released.

If we work under this assumption, then as a cell interacts with the environment it can undergo stresses not covered by its DNA. During cell cycles it tries to adapt the DNA to help release the stress. This is still selective advantage in terms of which cells are successful. While natural selection is helping to create the stress needed for change. This is based on the cell body being alive throughout the cell cycle.

InfiniteNow · 06-29-2008

Considering you were corrected on this elsewhere earlier this morning, I fail to understand how you can possibly repeat the same incorrect nonsense here.

Do you just not pay attention when people correct you, or do you just not understand those corrections?

Quote:

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Red blood cells can be alive without the requirement of DNA. They can't replicate without DNA, but can exhibit all the rest of life requirements.

Well, red blood cells don't replicate, so we can pretty much throw that premise out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

But DNA can not do much of anything without a cell body. It is dead meat.

Nope. That's wrong, too. Downright false, even. We can replicate DNA in the lab, outside of a cell with just a couple of different enzymes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

The DNA is designed to be extremely stable, or inert.

Nope. Another wrong comment.

God, three more paragraphs... never mind. Why am I wasting my time just repeating what you've already ignored elsewhere?

You made this post here at Hypography AFTER seeing the corrections elsewhere. I really just don't know about you sometimes.

**ModEdit: Link to other science forum removed**

HydrogenBond = Pioneer

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EDIT (iNow) - Hey Freezy, it's okay to share links to other fora. I wasn't trying to lure anyone away from Hypography, so wasn't breaking the rules. I used to think about this issue in the same way that you have here back when I was a mod, and didn't allow people to post links to other fora, but Tormod corrected me and said it was okay as long as they were not primarily trying to increase the membership of that other forum, not soliciting members to leave Hypo and join them.

Hypography Science Forums - Science forums rules

The only type of linking (besides porn, pyramid schemes, hateful sites, and spam, of course) that will not be allowed on our site is when members solicit people to leave our site and join a competing service. That's just common sense. We won't allow people to use our site to promote a competing service any more than a brick-and-mortar store would allow his competitor to paste flyers all over his walls.

I won't repost the link, but if anyone wants to read where HydrogenBond has already been refuted on these exact same points (refuted BEFORE making them here), then just google "the secondary role of dna - science forums." That's the thread where he said pretty much the exact same thing and got spanked.

the secondary role of dna - science forums - Google Search

Moontanman · 06-29-2008

time and time again in these discussions we seem to get the idea of being alive confused with what is life.

What is life?
a chemical system that can uses chemicals and energy available in it's environment to grow and produce a temporary reduction in entropy around it's self and adapt to it's environment through Darwinian evolution.

what is being alive?
To answer that you have to decide on what level you are talking about. In a human it means a functioning brain.
in a bacterium it's no too different than the definition of what is life. but it still means a whole organism that is doing what it has evolved to do but it doesn't have to reproduce to be alive it just has to metabolise, function, and be the result of some sort of reproduction.

I thought this was going to simple but obviously it is not, any one want to add or subtract from this?

Overdog · 06-30-2008

My experience is that almost everything, almost always, turns out to be a lot more complicated than I currently think it is...

Check this out.
Genome communication

Quote:

In the late 19th century Gregor Mendel used peas to show that one copy of a gene (allele) is inherited from the mother and one from the father. In the progeny, the inherited genes are expressed at the right time and in the right place, but until recently, it was thought that although gene products could be modified during the life of the organism, the genes themselves were unchanged, except for random mutation. Now it appears that one copy of some genes can alter the expression of the other copy, and those changes are passed down to the next generation. These epigenetic alterations, called paramutations may be important in introducing changes when plants and other organisms are environmentally stressed. The exact mechanisms of how genes talk to other genes and change their behavior are being investigated, and recent results suggest that these processes could be important in engineering plants responsive to a variety of environmental conditions.

Galapagos · 06-30-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moontanman

time and time again in these discussions we seem to get the idea of being alive confused with what is life.

What is life?
a chemical system that can uses chemicals and energy available in it's environment to grow and produce a temporary reduction in entropy around it's self and adapt to it's environment through Darwinian evolution.

what is being alive?
To answer that you have to decide on what level you are talking about. In a human it means a functioning brain.
in a bacterium it's no too different than the definition of what is life. but it still means a whole organism that is doing what it has evolved to do but it doesn't have to reproduce to be alive it just has to metabolise, function, and be the result of some sort of reproduction.

I thought this was going to simple but obviously it is not, any one want to add or subtract from this?

I've heard Stuart Kaufman define agency(things that "do"; meaners who give meaning) as being ascribed to anything that completes one thermodynamic work cycle and can reproduce molecularly(which I think would include mitochondria). I've read others say that the only requirement for life is that it has evolved by natural selection, which would include viruses(although this may raise some questions; what if a computer virus evolves by natural selection? ).

goku · 07-01-2008

evolution is fact, hmm, i was punished for saying something like that.

can chemical reactions learn?

InfiniteNow · 07-01-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by goku

evolution is fact, hmm, i was punished for saying something like that.

Do you mean here at Hypography, or at some point in your life by some authority figure?

If the first, can you provide more context and perhaps what you actually said?
If in your life, then I sincerely apologize that anyone would have punished you for accepting the accurate truth of evolution.