The first section is filled with "facts" that are badly mistaken. Evolution is not directional; there is no reason to expect that organisms will always become more complicated or will never become less complex. Organisms can lose organs that are not useful in their environment.
- Whales have vestiges of hind legs that have become greatly reduced down to bone spurs.
- Many organisms that live in caves or in the deep ocean lack eyes.
- One hypothesis about the evolution of viruses is that viruses evolved from a common ancestor to bacteria into a parasite that requires other organisms to reproduce.
I am uncertain about what the clause "and also experience" means in the last sentence.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics does state that entropy (or disorder) increases in a random flow of energy.
The reason the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't apply to living organisms is that living organisms capture energy from the environment and use that energy to repair the disorder that occurs. For example, being a warm-blooded organism brings a higher rate of mutations in DNA simply because the nucleotides that make up DNA and RNA are more unstable at higher temperature. This is offset by the energy liberated from food that is used to repair DNA.
When does the Second Law of Thermodynamics apply to living things? It applies when they die; they stop taking in energy and at that point the body disintegrates.
Mutations are random - and can create more complicated organisms. As I mentioned in the last post, mutations are generally silent, occasionally negative, and rarely positive.
Labeling mutations as a destructive force that increases entropy is just plain weird. A mutation is not necessarily a lower state of entropy compared to the original state; a mutation is often part of a very complex chemical structure and can create complicated chemical structures - in other words - a mutation can lower entropy. The comparison to an earthquake is purposefully misleading - but hey, it's ATI......
The reason the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't apply to living organisms is that living organisms capture energy from the environment and use that energy to repair the disorder that occurs. For example, being a warm-blooded organism brings a higher rate of mutations in DNA simply because the nucleotides that make up DNA and RNA are more unstable at higher temperature. This is offset by the energy liberated from food that is used to repair DNA.
When does the Second Law of Thermodynamics apply to living things? It applies when they die; they stop taking in energy and at that point the body disintegrates.
Mutations are random - and can create more complicated organisms. As I mentioned in the last post, mutations are generally silent, occasionally negative, and rarely positive.
Labeling mutations as a destructive force that increases entropy is just plain weird. A mutation is not necessarily a lower state of entropy compared to the original state; a mutation is often part of a very complex chemical structure and can create complicated chemical structures - in other words - a mutation can lower entropy. The comparison to an earthquake is purposefully misleading - but hey, it's ATI......
The world is a fascinating place - and it's fascinating enough that ATI's authors didn't need to fudge the truth.
Yes, bacteria have pretty cool cell walls - but it's not like each bacterial species has a completely unique type of cell wall. The cell walls are similar enough between two large sub-group of bacteria that microbiologists use the type of cell wall as the first step in determining the identity of a bacteria. The Gram stain to identify the cell wall uses a two-step staining technique on a slide with bacteria on it. The two groups are referred to as "Gram negative" and "Gram positive". Added bonus: a lot of antibiotics work by breaking holes in the cell wall and cellular membrane of a bacteria so knowing that an infection is by a Gram negative (or positive) gives doctors a quick way to eliminate certain classes of antibiotics when a patient is suffering an infection.
Viruses DO NOT do the same complex operations that larger organisms do. There's always a debate about if viruses are alive or not. The issue is that viruses cannot reproduce on their own; they do not have the cellular equipment to do that any more. A virus has to invade a cell, hijack the DNA or RNA of the cell, and use the cellular equipment to produce more viruses. I fall in the "viruses are not alive" category of scientists.
I'm very curious how ATI would deal with prions.....
Yes, bacteria have pretty cool cell walls - but it's not like each bacterial species has a completely unique type of cell wall. The cell walls are similar enough between two large sub-group of bacteria that microbiologists use the type of cell wall as the first step in determining the identity of a bacteria. The Gram stain to identify the cell wall uses a two-step staining technique on a slide with bacteria on it. The two groups are referred to as "Gram negative" and "Gram positive". Added bonus: a lot of antibiotics work by breaking holes in the cell wall and cellular membrane of a bacteria so knowing that an infection is by a Gram negative (or positive) gives doctors a quick way to eliminate certain classes of antibiotics when a patient is suffering an infection.
Viruses DO NOT do the same complex operations that larger organisms do. There's always a debate about if viruses are alive or not. The issue is that viruses cannot reproduce on their own; they do not have the cellular equipment to do that any more. A virus has to invade a cell, hijack the DNA or RNA of the cell, and use the cellular equipment to produce more viruses. I fall in the "viruses are not alive" category of scientists.
I'm very curious how ATI would deal with prions.....
That's right enough. It's a bit outdated because "geographic separation" is not a requirement of speciation - especially in non-animal organisms. Plants are known for producing a genetically abnormal offspring that cannot breed back to the parent species because of a mismatch between chromosome number. In animals, that would mean the organism couldn't reproduce. Plants, though, have a trick up their (proverbial) sleeves; they can reproduce asexually. If that abnormal plant sends off a runner that grows into a new plant, that new plant has the name number of chromosomes as the abnormal plant. Now, the abnormal plant and its clone can reproduce sexually using flowers again. Poof! We've now had a new species evolve in the middle of an existing species without geographic separation.
The author then goes into great detail about how the frequency of the morphs in the British pepper moth changed from "mostly light" before the Industrial Revolution to "mostly dark" during the Industrial Revolution back to "mostly light" as pollution decreased.
The author then goes into great detail about how the frequency of the morphs in the British pepper moth changed from "mostly light" before the Industrial Revolution to "mostly dark" during the Industrial Revolution back to "mostly light" as pollution decreased.
I kept waiting for the author to explain why they were harping on about pepper moth morphs and lab coat color and how it disproves evolution. See, species are usually defined as organisms who can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Light and dark pepper moths are both members of one species of moth. Ditto for different coat colors in dogs.
There's a separate issue involving dogs and horses. Humans try to keep purebred lines of dogs and horses for around 200 years- and the dogs and horses work as diligently to cross-breed with whatever member of their species comes near them. It's a bit easier with horses now since relatively few stallions are kept by private owners compared to mares and geldings - but an intact dog will travel (or cause intact males to travel) long distances to find females in heat. Heck, we had a group of steers (which are castrated male cattle) get out, wander to another dairy farm 5 miles away and start to hang out around the cows who were in heat. Livestock aren't picky - and they know far more about how to find a mate than humans give them credit for.
The last section is the most flaky argument - both scientifically and theologically.
The only way ATI can try and make homologous structures in organisms seem scientifically invalid is by doing a botched job on the history section. Sure, scientists compared the skeletal structure of different animals in the 1500's. Next, they looked at the cellular structure of tissues beginning in the early 1600s. By 1800, scientists were working out the relative ages of fossils and comparing the structures found in fossils to living organisms as well. Research exploded in the 1900s - scientists figured out how to look at cellular structure within fossils as well as developed ways to compare protein, RNA, and DNA sequences using various techniques.
The neat thing - all of these fields added new information that helped scientists tease out which organisms were related to each other. It's not like scientists are relying solely on anatomical drawings from the 1500s alone.
And this is where ATI goes off the rails theologically.
The neat thing - all of these fields added new information that helped scientists tease out which organisms were related to each other. It's not like scientists are relying solely on anatomical drawings from the 1500s alone.
And this is where ATI goes off the rails theologically.
Yup. ATI falls back into the common CP/QF heresy that God's omnipotence is constrained within the physical world. God's just like a human painter - artists are constrained within style, techniques and design. God is constrained so that most bacteria only have two cell wall types, entire gene sequences are conserved between species, and lots of animals have similar skeletons.
To me, the most obvious response is that if an omnipotent Creator could make anything - anything! - and didn't want to create evolution, why don't we have more variation? Like a vertebrate with six legs or hairy fish? Really, an evolved world is much more boring than the creations possible by a Divine Creator.
To me, the most obvious response is that if an omnipotent Creator could make anything - anything! - and didn't want to create evolution, why don't we have more variation? Like a vertebrate with six legs or hairy fish? Really, an evolved world is much more boring than the creations possible by a Divine Creator.
I love this trick! ATI makes a deep sounding statement about bones and skin - then stops dead. Ending is important because giving any sort of detail about how bones or skins are 'irreconcilably' different will be disproved rapidly and easily by comparative anatomists. Better to just stop and run away before anyone asks questions.
Boom! Done with evolution for now :-)
Boom! Done with evolution for now :-)
"Viruses DO NOT do the same complex operations that larger organisms do. There's always a debate about if viruses are alive or not. The issue is that viruses cannot reproduce on their own; they do not have the cellular equipment to do that any more. A virus has to invade a cell, hijack the DNA or RNA of the cell, and use the cellular equipment to produce more viruses. I fall in the "viruses are not alive" category of scientists."
ReplyDeleteThat is so cool! Evolution's not my favorite topic, but I love learning bio stuff like this!
I've loved Biology my whole life. I was fascinated by viruses starting when I was in about fourth grade - so I know more than is useful in day-to-day life :-)
DeleteIt's certainly useful when critiquing all these writings! I love how you can spot so many errors, from farming to biology to historical stuff.
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