ONE INCOMPLETELY understood puzzle in evolutionary theory is what is the driving force for greater complexity in a living system. Intelligent design proponents are heavily invested in the idea of complexity but disagree on how to measure it, with most measurements coming down to basic biomass. This is a poor means of measuring complexity, but the reasons for this are outside the scope of this article (for a short summary of some concepts in biological complexity see this article, sadly only available to subscribers). However, when considering a biological pathway we can probably agree that a pathway with only a few proteins is less complex than a pathway that fulfills the same role but uses many more proteins. Consider the clotting cascade. In simple chordates such as Amphioxus possibly only two or three proteins are involved (we don’t know the full details), while in mammals there are more than a dozen components. Research has demonstrated that the clotting system is not irreducibly complex, but the reason for this increase in complexity has not been previously determined.
THE SCHISMATICS, that is. Presented without further comment:
LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT.
We at DarwinCentral are solidly pro-science.
Now, the left wants you to think that socialism and science go hand-in-hand. This is NOT true.
Here’s a prime example of a left wing group using science as a poorly disguised veneer to cover their agenda.
LAST WEEK, both Bill Dembski and his acolyte, the hapless imbecile Sal Cordova , over on the uncommondissent IDiot blog, were trumpeting the socially ultraconservative League of Polish Families’ attacks on evolution. Both quoted at length the words of the Polish MEP, Maciej Giertych, Sal proclaiming his credentials as a biologist.
Unfortunately, their hero apparently doesn’t know when to shut up. The Panda’s Thumb has some more of Giertych’s erudite thoughts on evolution.
“A scientist showed me a picture of an American boxer. He had all the traits of Neanderthal man. These people are among us. They are part of the human race, probably more prevalent once upon a time, but who still exist”
And as if that weren’t enough….
Research shows that dinosaurs and man were contemporaries. In every culture, there are indications that we remember (dinosaurs). The Scots have Loch Ness, we Poles have Wawel dragon (in Krakow), Marco Polo spoke of an imperial carriage in China which was pulled by a dragon.
I’m emailing my good buddies at uncommondissent with these quotes, so they can further showcase the erudition of this latest dissenter from Darwinism.
A new study of human fossils asks, what if we are the odd ones?
Most people think of humans as the top, the apex of the family tree. But new research suggests this quintessentially human infatuation with ourselves may have impaired our judgment. Erik Trinkaus, a paleontologist and Neandertal expert at Washington University in St. Louis, believes that modern human features are unusual enough, compared with ancestral members of the genus Homo, to make us a side branch of the family tree.
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ONLY SEVEN months ago the report of the discovery of Tiktaalik, a tetrapod-like fish, was greeted with elation by the science-minded. Although this animal was clearly a fish, it had front fins that were more like primitive forelimbs (a fossil of the posterior half has not yet been found). Examination of these limbs showed they were capable of propping the fish up. Additionally, Tiktaalik has many other features unusual for a fish showing it was becoming adapted to living in extremely shallow waters with possible forays onto dry land.
This week we greet another unusual fish. John Long and coworkers report in Nature‘s advance online publication the discovery of Gogonasus. While members of this genus have been discovered previously, their state of preservation was poor and this fish’s unusual features were not appreciated.
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NOT TOO LONG ago the idea of studying fossilized embryos half a billion years old would have seemed ridiculous, but advances in technology have made this practical. This week in Science Dr. Hagadorn and coworkers present the results of their studies of Precambrian embryos from the Doushantuo region of China using a battery of methods including X-ray computed tomography (CT), electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and thin-layer petrography.
MOST CREATIONISTS have a very homo-centric view of the universe. They believe that God created the universe specifically to create a home for humankind on Planet Earth. When we examine the universe how reasonable does that belief seem?
DUE TO THE controversy regarding destroying embryos for stem cell research, many scientists are studying ways of obtaining cells without harming embryos. I discussed one new finding recently, that stem cell lines can successfully be cultured from a single cell extracted from an embryo, leaving the embryo unharmed. On September 21, an open-access article appeared in the journal Stem Cells reporting a possible new method to obtain embryonic stem cells in a noncontroversial manner.
TODAY THE Nobel Foundation announced that the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine goes to Andrew Fire and Craig Mello for their groundbreaking work in RNA silencing, also called RNA interference (RNAi). These researchers discovered that introducing short double-stranded RNA fragments into a cell activates a cellular mechanism that silences expression of a gene with a complimentary RNA transcript by destroying these transcripts. While recently some adverse effects of this technology in gene silencing in living animals were discovered, it remains promising for therapy for various illnesses. RNAi may in future be useful against cancers which overexpress certain genes, or against genetic disorders in which the body makes a mutant protein. Even if RNAi is never therapeutically useful, it will remain a valuable technique in genetic research. This Nobel Prize was awarded unusually soon after the initial publication of this research, and is well deserved.