Talk:Patterns of biological evolution

Still working on fleshing this out.--TimS 10:14, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

That's one of the biggest articles to appear in one hit that I've seen! Pity it's mostly fiction. But as it is very popular fiction, I guess it needs to be documented. And critiqued, of course. Philip J. Rayment 10:53, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

I invite you to submit your thesis to peer review, Phil. Nematocyte 11:26, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Any article I put on Conservapedia is effectively open to peer review, as is TimS' contribution here, which I hope to peer-review. Philip J. Rayment 11:36, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

I welcome the peer review, consider the number of biologists that have already reviewed the information I have presented. I will be adding links to the examples and please look at the existing research publications I cited. PubMed is where most of the research articles are from.--TimS 11:40, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Back to work on Gene expression--TimS 11:40, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

This sounds like breaking news to me. The journal article is less than 3 years old, which means it's either a new theory or it's the first time anyone has found evidence for an old theory. (Or maybe we need to do a little more digging and write the article better.) --Ed Poor 08:19, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

The first recorded instance of work of this kind is 1878. That probably is breaking news to the our up-to-the-minute-science creationists ;). Nematocyte 09:17, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Let's have less sarcasm and more useful information, okay? What the article needs is proof that 'divergent evolution' has ever appeared. If there's nothing online you can point to, perhaps you can type in a journal article? --Ed Poor 10:23, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I cited three peer reviewed articles. Nematocyte 10:24, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Good. Now summarize them. Do not act as the Kyoto Protocol supporters do, and claim that something is "supported" by scientists. Actually show the scientific evidence, if any, those scientists have offered which support the theory in question. --Ed Poor 10:30, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

The summary is that divergant environmental conditions leads to divergant evolution. The evidence is within the papers. You can check the abstracts if you wish (they summarise the entire paper). Nematocyte 10:34, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Ed, did you look at the 7 research papers I gave on your talk page about scientific findings of divergent evolution? I hope you are not misunderstanding the term divergent with macroevolution. If so then it is understandable why you are refusing to address the evidence. Look at my description of divergent evolution and then look at my description on the macroevolution page. You will see that there is a fundamental difference in the two terms. Divergent evolution can be applied as what happens when a bacterium mutates to have an antibiotic resistance and its progeny have the same resistance.--TimS 10:29, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I wish to clarify the point I made about the bacteria resistance, I am talking about mutations to the genome not to the plasmid. Bacteria can pass plasmids between each other rapidly and the colony can gain the genetic material this way. The mutation to the bacteria genome would be the example of divergent evolution, not the plasmid passing.--TimS 15:10, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I saw no evidence in the article of the first claim made, so I cut the rest of it. If you had submitted that to me as a science teacher, you'd have gotten an F. Although maybe your school has different standards, here we are building a trustworthy encyclopedia.

If you've read something which convinces you of divergent evolution or macroevolution or natural selection or anything like that, I hope you will summarize it in terms our readers can understand. Then they can look up any references you give which back up your summary. --Ed Poor 10:35, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Ed are you saying you did not understand the article? "Parallel diversification of Australian gall-thrips on Acacia." The very first sentence of the abstract "The diversification of gall-inducing Australian Kladothrips (Insecta: Thysanoptera) on Acacia has produced a pair of sister-clades, each of which includes a suite of lineages that utilize virtually the same set of 15 closely related host plant species." states the divergence. If you are not versed in scientific literature then let me know, I offer to rewrite the abstracts in layman's terms. I would have to mention about the science teacher comment, if your version of a science teacher failed that paper then they showed a lack of understanding of scientific literature and would not be capable to critique it. I have to take my son to the Dr.s so I will continue upon my return.--TimS 10:46, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I did summarize it. Divergant environment conditions causes populations to diverge. It's done virtually every day with bacteria, and very commonly with mice. Nematocyte 10:40, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

For all of this talk we still have not addressed the issue of the other two types of evolution being removed from this article.--TimS 10:32, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for the revert

Thanks Philip for the revert and I will start working on the remainder of the article as soon as I am done with Gene Expression. Do we have a template for large articles that are still works in progress?--TimS 15:13, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I don't think so, but look in the list of templates. Philip J. Rayment 19:23, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Parallel evolution

It's not clear (to me at least) what the difference is between convergent evolution and parallel evolution. Philip J. Rayment 08:28, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

Parallel evolution would be when two different species evolve together after a symbiotic relationship had been established, like a parasite and its host.

Convergent evolution is when two different species who do not share a symbiotic relationship evolve similar traits due to selective pressures of the environment.

The difference between the two is based on the symbiotic relationship. The examples should provide a difference, whales and fish having similar shaped bodies for moving through water would be convergent evolution whereas a tick and a deer evolving together where the tick is only found on a certain species of deer and has selective traits for that host, such as additional enzymes to help break down a protein found only in that deer species.--TimS 14:37, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

Thanks. Is there a reason that the article doesn't mention symbiotic relationships them? Or is it just one of those things that you never got around to completing? Philip J. Rayment 22:10, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

I never got around to tweaking it. There are many examples but I wanted to find something that did not include a louse and dog. Lol, something more interesting would be better for this page.--TimS 09:04, 25 May 2007 (EDT)

Additional New Genetic Information

This is very misleading. Evolution does not require an addition of new genetic material to occur, a rearrangement of current material can produce drastic results. Let’s look at sickle cell anima for example. Its primary cause is due to a hydrophilic glutamate (Glu) being substituted by the hydrophobic valine (Val), which reduces the solubility of ß-globin. In this case, this mutation causes hemoglobin to form linear polymers linked by the hydrophobic interaction between the valine groups causing sickle-cell deformation of erythrocytes. This mutation is genetically passed between heterozygous carriers and helps to fend off the protozoa that cause malaria. Homozygous carriers tend to have complications due to a reduction of O2 in the blood volume. This is all due to a single point mutation of a codon that switches adenine to uracil during transcription, the DNA has the point mutation of an adenine changing to a thymine. This is not based off of new genetic material but off existing genetic material. The genomic size is the same as before since there was not an addition of nucleotides. Many proponents of evolutionary theory use the "increase of genetic material" argument but it is considered unfounded since complexity is not proportional to genomic size, just the order in which it is arranged.--TimS 15:08, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

Whether or not evolution requires new genetic information is, in a sense, the crux of the whole debate. You cannot go from the supposed first living cell to the variety of life that we have today without the addition of new genetic information, so I would argue that evolution most certainly does require the addition of new genetic information.

However, that doesn't mean that new genetic information is the only mechanism of change. The question is whether other changes are called "evolution". Evolutionists do call other such changes "evolution", but creationists do not. So who is correct? The creation/evolution debate is not over these other changes, but over the single-cell-to-all-life (or "goo-to-you") changes, and evolutionists describing any change as "evolution" in order to justify goo-to-you evolution is quite misleading.

But if there is a specific wording in the article that you think could be better worded, be my guest in changing it, or proposing a specific change.

Philip J. Rayment 22:21, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

Philip, I will agree that you can not go from the first organism to what we have today without an increase in genomic material but this view is very narrow when trying to state that the material is proportional to the complexity of the organism. Review these two websites about genomic size and organisms http://www.genomesize.com/ http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/02_01/Sizing_genomes.shtml Notice that the Amoeba dubia is the largest genome we have recorded in nature, 10^2 larger than the human genome but not a complex creature. Viral genomes tend to be on the small size but once you move into the land of living organisms you find a huge variance in sizes of genomic material of the simple life forms. In the case of the Amoeba the genomic size is large enough to accommodate the human genome plus more. So the difference between the Amoeba and the human is how the nucleotides are arranged. This is an extreme example but it does show that size really does not matter when it comes to genomic material.

Your question about who is correct, evolutionist's call it evolution but what do the creationist’s call it? If microevolution is held in creationist's eyes as being true then why could something such as macroevolution be false (have to point out that macro and micro evolution are only terms used by creationists whereas in the biological science community there is not an official distinction)? The only real difference between macro and micro evolution is a matter of time. With the accumulation of changes from microevolution how can it be perceived that macroevolution could not happen? Not to mention when studying the skeletal structures of a broad spectrum of organisms you find amazing similarities, which coupled with genomic mapping, give you an amazingly accurate family tree. So I postulate that the only reason why macroevolution is not held in a favorable view of creationist that hold microevolution as truthful is based entirely on the amount of time that it would take to have this occur. (As a side note I noticed a posting a while back asking why the human population is not larger, the answer is that the rate of growth of the human species has increased considerably over the last 500 years due to changes in science and ways of life. When humans were hunters and gatherers the birth rate was much lower due to poor diet and times of famine. With the advent of agriculture stabilization occurred in the dietary portion of the human lifestyle which allowed for a higher birthrate. As many tech advancements happened the growth rate increased to eventually what we have today. You can look up the data of third world nations and see the birth rate and life expectancy rates are far different then those in 1st world countries, this supports the rate changes)

It is interesting that you postulated that evolutionists claim any change as evolution, this is untrue. Whereas bacteria can gain antibiotic resistance through two different methods, by chromosomal DNA or by plasmid DNA, only the mutations in the chromosomal DNA would count as evolutionary. This is due to bacteria freely sharing plasmid DNA with each other in their colonies. The ability to share the information would be an evolutionary step but the actual sharing of information would not be, if based on the plasmid DNA transfers. However, mutation in the chromosomal DNA does allow for the progeny of the bacteria to have the same resistance from the parent bacteria. So, an example of what is and what would not be evolution. There are specific mechanisms that are classified as evolutionary, however it takes a very educated person in the biological sciences to be able to point out several of these mechanisms, and I can only list a few and all dealing with molecular systems. So the general layman does not have the background often to distinguish the differences in what constitutes as evolution and what does not, often enough most just label it all as evolution by default. A Biologist (any specialty) would not make a sweeping generalization of the mechanisms if they understood that their audience understood some of the finer points of the science. This, however, happens in many field of study.

I will have to look through it a while to see about any changes, I will list them on the talk if I find any.--TimS 09:02, 25 May 2007 (EDT)