Hi Nigel,
Thanks for your erudite and interesting answers. However I don't think
you really answered the question I was interested in because you are so
saturated with the current paradigm. I sense from your answer that you
are happy with the idea that given an *actually* simple (in comparison
to later more complex) self-replicating life form, random mutations and
selection is sufficient to generate all life as we know it. I don't
wish to argue against that view, even though for myself I find it
impossible to believe.
If you could momentarily put aside the current paradigm and consider the
possibility that we have been visited by aliens who although evolving
completely independently on another planet have, incredibly as it may
seem, ended up with compatible DNA to our own - so that a case of hybrid
sexual intercourse such as Antonio Vilas Boas
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B4nio_Vilas_Boas> case could
occur. The implications to evolution of this type of case being true
are I think quite revolutionary. It means for instance that the final
human DNA outcome from the whole evolution process must be completely
determined from the very beginning!!!
I really don't want to hear arguments about how this is impossible and
the Vilas Boas case must be fake - I appreciate them fully. What I would
like is if you could withhold disbelief sufficiently to consider whether
there you can see an argument from within your field of evolutionary
genetics? For instance, is it possible that there is sufficient
information programmed into the simplest life forms (or at least the
ones that unfolded into the forms of life that finally resulted in us)
to at least allow, if not ensure, that the final result would be human?
Also I wonder what is the current guess at the first (and ongoingly
successful) animal to emerge from the sea? I saw some large carnivore
types that were proposed - but how would they live on land without other
animals to eat? And if they had to go back into the sea to eat (which
is their main daily and lifelong task) why not simply stay there. I
think it would need to be an animal that could live well on land plants
and/or insects (which I believe long preceded the vertebrates).
John
On 27/08/2014 6:49 AM, Nigel Dyer wrote:
To my mind there are two separate evolution question problems that need
to be addressed. The first, which you pick up on, is the evolution of
the complex folding proteins, and the second is the evolution of the
information that is used to define the complex structure of multi celled
organisms (such as us). There are countless examples which show how
duplication of whole or parts of genes genes, mutation of parts of genes
can create complex proteins from simple proteins. Indeed the
relationship between equivalent proteins in different organsisms can
often be used to produce a 'family tree' or phylogentic tree which
closely mirrors the accepted evolutionary relationship between the
species, and shows how a simple ancestral protein gave rise to lots of
complex variants in different plants/animals.
The evolution of structure/form and instincts which is what Darwin talks
about, because he knows nothing of proteins, is very different because
we still understand very little about how this is encoded into the DNA,
although there is absolute evidence that it is. This is increasingly
looking to be encoded in the 'junk' DNA in a much more distributed and
robust way (like a hologram). These can change and mutate and give rise
to variations in the organism without being lethal. A lot of the
statistics that creationists use to show that evolution is improbable is
based on the sequences in genes that encode for proteins, where small
changes are frequently lethal. The statistics for the rest of the DNA
is completely different, and I beleive completely compatible with the
evolutionary model.
So, I see no need for additional injection or meddling in order that DNA
could go from producing simple lifeforms to complex lifeforms, but I
dont think this can be proved mathematically yet because we dont
understand the 'junk DNA' coding rules yet. However, my hunch is that
we are in for a big surprise when we finally work out what the coding
rules are, but that is a different topic entirely.
And the first animal to emerge from the sea was not a frog, but probably
shared some aspects of the way that it breathed with frogs.
