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ORIGINAL: Jhud

This thread is part of a spin-off of another discussion had earlier about whether evolution is being debated in science or not, and a paper i just read which is hot off the presses, called Concatenated Analysis Sheds Light on Early Metazoan Evolution and Fuels a Modern “Urmetazoon” Hypothesis. For the lay folk, a good synopsis is here.

Basically the paper continues to confirm a few things I have contended earlier. First, it is false that it is the that animals, as previously contended by evolutionary theory, developed from simple animals to more complex:

Following one of the basic principles in evolutionary biology that complex life forms derive from more primitive ancestors, it has long been believed that the higher animals, the Bilateria, arose from simpler (diploblastic) organisms such as the cnidarians (corals, polyps, and jellyfishes)

In fact, it appears that most animals groups developed in parallel:

The Bilateria and Cnidaria (together with the other diploblastic animals) are in fact sister groups: that is, they evolved in parallel from a very simple common ancestor.

And based on that, a 'tree' of life would look quite different than Darwin imagined, and instead consist of several parallel groups rather than slowly deriving from one another. I also find this new 'tree' interesting for a couple of reasons - one being that I think it shows that the major groups of animals are quite separate and distinct - and despite our fixation on chordates (which we are) a proper distinction shows most major animal groups are parallel, not successive. Also, it shows that rather than there being a rich understanding of animal ancestry, beyond what exists today, most animal groups seem to have arisen quite suddenly with little ancestry.

And the reason for this, is that the basic genetics for all life are ancient and ubiquitous:

We conclude that the higher animals (Bilateria) and lower animals (diploblasts), probably separated very early, at the very beginning of metazoan animal evolution and independently evolved their complex body plans, including body axes, nervous system, sensory organs, and other characteristics. The striking similarities in several complex characters (such as the eyes) resulted from both lineages using the same basic genetic tool kit, which was already present in the common ancestor. The study identifies Placozoa as the most basal diploblast group and thus a living fossil genome that nicely demonstrates, not only that complex genetic tool kits arise before morphological complexity, but also that these kits may form similar morphological structures in parallel.

As DeSalle says when describing why the most 'primitive' group appears to be primitive, he states:
"It is the underlying genetic tool kit that is similar amongst these basal animals. Placozoa have all of the tools in their genome to make a nervous system, but they just don't do it."

In short, the nervous system isn't evolved in higher animals, it is expressed there - what evolution fails to explain of course, is how a 'complex genetic toolkit' came to arise before any of the tools it produced did.

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And all this happened on which day? Of course these ideas and findings point to how much more complex evolution is and how marvelous God's work is. My prediction is that, if I live long enough, the legitimate questions about evolution will be answered and the theory will be modified based on evidence.

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And all this happened on which day?

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Of course these ideas and findings point to how much more complex evolution is and how marvelous God's work is.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

Well, you and I have lived long enough to see it's fundamental tenets gutted. I am not sure how it recovers after that.

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Just what fundamental tenets are you talking about?

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I'd like to think that the reason that nobody is commenting on the article is because they believe that it has seriously undermined their belief in universal common descent, but I think that maybe it's because it's really long and nobody read it. Did you actually read the full article, Jack?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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I'd like to think that the reason that nobody is commenting on the article is because they believe that it has seriously undermined their belief in universal common descent, but I think that maybe it's because it's really long and nobody read it. Did you actually read the full article, Jack?

I did, in typical science geek fashion.

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And here I am wasting time on homework!

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

What are you majoring in again Dan?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

What a great field to understand this stuff. You should think about the field of biomimetics eventually.

Are the latest finds like this even filtering down to classes yet? I remember such a lag time between what I would learn in class and what I read outside of class in college.

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Heheh, well I haven't taken a class yet where they have had to go in depth about the evolutionary history of stuff, but I recall in my Biology II class they basically laid the course out taxonomically in order of "simplest" to "most complex". So basically we went through what was the evolution of animals from the sponge to the chordates and vertebrates. That particular class was the only one I've been in where the instructor would bring up current events in science. I will sometimes talk to instructors after class trying to find out their experience in Intelligent Design, and they usually just say that it's Creationism and religiously based.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Heheh, well I haven't taken a class yet where they have had to go in depth about the evolutionary history of stuff, but I recall in my Biology II class they basically laid the course out taxonomically in order of "simplest" to "most complex". So basically we went through what was the evolution of animals from the sponge to the chordates and vertebrates. That particular class was the only one I've been in where the instructor would bring up current events in science. I will sometimes talk to instructors after class trying to find out their experience in Intelligent Design, and they usually just say that it's Creationism and religiously based.

When I was in college I would just respectively ask about cases (often during lectures) that either contradicted something they were teaching, or shed a different light on it. At the very least it would show the professor wasn't the last word on the subject.

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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And all this happened on which day?

Five and six.

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Of course these ideas and findings point to how much more complex evolution is and how marvelous God's work is.

I assume you mean the "work" of intelligently designing preloaded genomes. Looks like you're coming around, cow!

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it is easy to see God's power.

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the evidence doesn't point toward special creation.

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Doc, I'd love for it to be that way, and it is easy to see God's power. But we are talking about science here and the evidence doesn't point toward special creation. It might eventually become more evident. And, Intelligent Design in no way comes close to Young Earth Creationism. ID was built on evolution minus Darwinism.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Doc, I'd love for it to be that way, and it is easy to see God's power. But we are talking about science here and the evidence doesn't point toward special creation. It might eventually become more evident. And, Intelligent Design in no way comes close to Young Earth Creationism. ID was built on evolution minus Darwinism.

Well, I think in a sense it's a matter of focus, because for most of world history the evidence has been sufficient to point most of humanity toward a belief that there was more to the universe than itself (indeed, for most people in most places, this still is true).

But I think the evolutionists are focused in such a way that they can't see it. The analogy I think of is old newspaper print - from an ordinary viewing level the order and purpose, the 'design' of a newspaper is evident; one can read the print, see the pictures, discern the meaning.

On another level, all you see is black dots on fiber - there seems to be no order or purpose, there is no evident design, and it's not hard to imagine it could have just come abut through natural, unguided circumstances.

But if one goes deeper, to the chemical makeup of the inks, the way the fibers of the paper have been composed to serve as a medium for those inks, and ultimately for the text and images, the evidence for it being designed again becomes evident. Evolutionists are just stuck at looking at dots - ID has simply gone deeper.

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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it is easy to see God's power.

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the evidence doesn't point toward special creation.

I will let these two totally contradictory statements speak for themselves, cow!

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Doc, I'd love for it to be that way, and it is easy to see God's power. But we are talking about science here and the evidence doesn't point toward special creation. It might eventually become more evident. And, Intelligent Design in no way comes close to Young Earth Creationism. ID was built on evolution minus Darwinism.

Well, I think in a sense it's a matter of focus, because for most of world history the evidence has been sufficient to point most of humanity toward a belief that there was more to the universe than itself (indeed, for most people in most places, this still is true).

But I think the evolutionists are focused in such a way that they can't see it. The analogy I think of is old newspaper print - from an ordinary viewing level the order and purpose, the 'design' of a newspaper is evident; one can read the print, see the pictures, discern the meaning.

On another level, all you see is black dots on fiber - there seems to be no order or purpose, there is no evident design, and it's not hard to imagine it could have just come abut through natural, unguided circumstances.

But if one goes deeper, to the chemical makeup of the inks, the way the fibers of the paper have been composed to serve as a medium for those inks, and ultimately for the text and images, the evidence for it being designed again becomes evident. Evolutionists are just stuck at looking at dots - ID has simply gone deeper.

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ID is really more about what evolution isn't rather than what ID is. To push ID based on the fact that humans can design falls short since human ability to design does not mean they, thmselves, were designed. The absence of total and complete chaos in the world is not enough to infer intelligent design. Plus, ID is totally about the Design, and nothing about the Designer(s). Until some coherent hypotheses are forthcoming about the Designer(s), we are left with everything from UFO's to various understandings of God as candidates.

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ORIGINAL: cow451

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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it is easy to see God's power.

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the evidence doesn't point toward special creation.

I will let these two totally contradictory statements speak for themselves, cow!

Actually not. One is based on religious beliefs, the second on scientific evidence.

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ORIGINAL: cow451

ID is really more about what evolution isn't rather than what ID is. To push ID based on the fact that humans can design falls short since human ability to design does not mean they, thmselves, were designed. The absence of total and complete chaos in the world is not enough to infer intelligent design. Plus, ID is totally about the Design, and nothing about the Designer(s). Until some coherent hypotheses are forthcoming about the Designer(s), we are left with everything from UFO's to various understandings of God as candidates.