Darwin Wrong About "Tree Of Life"

[mfbukowski]

From The Guardian

Charles Darwin's "tree of life", which shows how species are related through evolutionary history, is wrong and needs to be replaced, according to leading scientists.

The great naturalist first sketched how species might evolve along branches of an imaginary tree in 1837, an idea that quickly came to symbolise the theory of evolution by natural selection.

But modern genetics has revealed that representing evolutionary history as a tree is misleading, with scientists saying a more realistic way to represent the origins and inter-relatedness of species would be an impenetrable thicket. Darwin himself also wrote about evolution and ecosystems as a "tangled bank".

"We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality," Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, told New Scientist magazine.

Genetic tests on bacteria, plants and animals increasingly reveal that different species crossbreed more than originally thought, meaning that instead of genes simply being passed down individual branches of the tree of life, they are also transferred between species on different evolutionary paths. The result is a messier and more tangled "web of life".

Microbes swap genetic material so promiscuously it can be hard to tell one type from another, but animals regularly crossbreed too - as do plants - and the offspring can be fertile. According to some estimates, 10 per cent of animals regularly form hybrids by breeding with other species.

Last year, scientists at the University of Texas at Arlington found a strange chunk of DNA in the genetic make-up of eight animals, including the mouse, rat and the African clawed frog. The same chunk is missing from chickens, elephants and humans, suggesting it must have become wedged into the genomes of some animals by crossbreeding.

The findings mean that to link species by Darwin's evolutionary branches is an oversimplification. "The tree of life is being politely buried," said Michael Rose, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine. "What's less accepted is that our whole fundamental view of biology needs to change."

[thesometimesaint]

Though Darwin knew nothing of genetics, Mendel was still playing with peas when Darwin wrote his books, evolution by natural selection is the best explanation we have so far for the relationship of living things. http://www.scientus.org/Mendel-Darwin.html

[SamIam]

Though Darwin knew nothing of genetics, Mendel was still playing with peas when Darwin wrote his books, evolution by natural selection is the best explanation we have so far for the relationship of living things. http://www.scientus....del-Darwin.html

Help! Help! Can someone point me to the captain of this sinking vessel? Oh. Nevermind - there you are...

[Tsuzuki]

This is true, and the ancestors of humans interbred with both chimps and bonobos after the chimp/bonobo split, with some modern humans having more bonobo gene variants than others. What this has to do with the Gospel (and with the law of chastity, considering bonobos' sexual behavior) I'm not sure of.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/06/bonobo-genome-hints-at-common.html

[Ahab]

Help! Help! Can someone point me to the captain of this sinking vessel? Oh. Nevermind - there you are...

Right you are. As those of us know who know better than to believe that tangled mess, species aren't actually related, even though some species have many things in common with some other species. Each kind reproduces after its own kind, not after some other kind. Now we just need to weed out the incorrect thoughts from the tangled mess in some people's minds.

[ERayR]

This is true, and the ancestors of humans interbred with both chimps and bonobos after the chimp/bonobo split, with some modern humans having more bonobo gene variants than others. What this has to do with the Gospel (and with the law of chastity, considering bonobos' sexual behavior) I'm not sure of.

http://www.newscient...-at-common.html

I've seen a couple of people that had a strong resemblance to that picture. I probably should have found out which zoo is producing proto-humans.

[Tsuzuki]

I've seen a couple of people that had a strong resemblance to that picture. I probably should have found out which zoo is producing proto-humans.

It was in the Great Rift Valley, but it closed down about a million years ago. You can still just look in the mirror to see one of their descendants, though.

[CV75]

From The Guardian

I htink "web of life" is mislading too and should be replaced with the "Splice of Life"!!!

Or "Graft of Paths" (say it 3 times fast)!

[mfbukowski]

There are no facts, only interpretations- and reinterpretations

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Though Darwin knew nothing of genetics, Mendel was still playing with peas when Darwin wrote his books, evolution by natural selection is the best explanation we have so far for the relationship of living things. http://www.scientus.org/Mendel-Darwin.html

Do we teach "explanations" as fact...not usually. It is still theory, but in the sacred halls of education and often even in many churches today we are considered fools for not signing on to the party line. I once remembered getting shot down for suggesting that even though I believed in natural evolution...I believed that the creation of man was done by God in a singular event after the earth was ready. Edited May 16, 2013 by Bill “Papa” Lee

[ERayR]

It was in the Great Rift Valley, but it closed down about a million years ago. You can still just look in the mirror to see one of their descendants, though.

Then I take it nobody has presently been able to replicate their work. It would seem that qualifies it as a non-verifiable theory. Not in my mirror. When I look in my mirror I see a child of God. If that's what you see in your mirror I would get a new mirror.

[Tsuzuki]

Then I take it nobody has presently been able to replicate their work. It would seem that qualifies it as a non-verifiable theory. Not in my mirror. When I look in my mirror I see a child of God. If that's what you see in your mirror I would get a new mirror.

Bonobos are God's children too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_personhood

[SamIam]

It was in the Great Rift Valley, but it closed down about a million years ago. You can still just look in the mirror to see one of their descendants, though.

Is this one of those superstitions where he says bonobos three times in a dark bathroom and then turns the flashlight into the mirror and he sees you standing behind him?

[Hamilton Porter]

Do we teach "explanations" as fact...not usually. It is still theory, but in the sacred halls of education and often even in many churches today are considered a fool for not signing on to the party line. I once remembered getting shot down for suggesting that even though I believed in natural evolution...I believed that the creation of man was done by God in a singular event after the earth was ready.

Not necessarily a fool. They may be ignorant or don't care. I know of couple of economists (one with a PhD from Berkeley, other Princeton) who don't know how evolution is relevant to their lives (let alone their salvation). They don't know what the fuss is all about.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Hamilton Porter

[Ahab]

Not necessarily a fool. They may be ignorant or don't care. I know of couple of economists (one with a PhD from Berkeley, other Princeton) who don't know how evolution is relevant to their lives (let alone their salvation). They don't know what the fuss is all about.

I think it's all part of finding out where we came from, and how that pertains to us now. The whole point of the atonement is to restore us to the condition of Adam and Eve before the Fall, so if they were a higher form of ape then that's what we will be along with whatever else they were before they became a higher form of ape. It all goes toward the question of: What are we, really?

[halconero]

This is true, and the ancestors of humans interbred with both chimps and bonobos after the chimp/bonobo split, with some modern humans having more bonobo gene variants than others. What this has to do with the Gospel (and with the law of chastity, considering bonobos' sexual behavior) I'm not sure of.

http://www.newscient...-at-common.html

This is the biocultural anthropologist being nitpicky here...but according to evolutionary theory human ancestors and chimp/bonobo ancestors are the same thing. What you say smacks of the false view people have of the evolutionary theory that "we evolved from monkeys."

On another note, I've come to my own personal reconciliation with the theory and my belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, including creation.

On a double other note what this article is saying is not that the theory of evolution is disproven, just that Dawkins oversimplified things.

[ERayR]

This is the biocultural anthropologist being nitpicky here...but according to evolutionary theory human ancestors and chimp/bonobo ancestors are the same thing. What you say smacks of the false view people have of the evolutionary theory that "we evolved from monkeys."

I don't know about the others but I understand that evolutionary theory is that they came from the same branch by diverging at a certain point. This theory is supported by the observation of all the variation within the different species. (dog family - wolves to Chihuahua) The problem is that even with directed breeding programs (as opposed chance mutation) in the end they still remain within their own kind. Also, IMNSHO the theory of evolution negates the fall and through the fall the attonement.

On another note, I've come to my own personal reconciliation with the theory and my belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, including creation.

I have my own working hypothesis that works well and doesn't savage the fall and atonement.

On a double other note what this article is saying is not that the theory of evolution is disproven, just that Dawkins oversimplified things.

I can agree that he certainly oversimplified things.

[blackstrap]

In many if not most textbooks on biology, the " Ascent of Man " parade is shown as representative of evolution. That this presentation is misleading if not outright false , is acknowledged by biologists . And yet it is still used as boilerplate evidence in the minds of beginners in the study of origins.

Edited May 17, 2013 by blackstrap

[ERayR]

In many if not most textbooks on biology, the " Ascent of Man " parade is shown as representative of evolution. That this presentation is misleading if not outright false , is acknowledged by biologists . And yet it is still used as boilerplate evidence in the minds of beginners in the study of origins.

Not only the pictures but the narrative used with it is pure imagination.

[halconero]

I don't know about the others but I understand that evolutionary theory is that they came from the same branch by diverging at a certain point. This theory is supported by the observation of all the variation within the different species. (dog family - wolves to Chihuahua) The problem is that even with directed breeding programs (as opposed chance mutation) in the end they still remain within their own kind. Also, IMNSHO the theory of evolution negates the fall and through the fall the atonement.

The first sentence is generally correct. The second is also correct, but the example is flawed. Wolves, chihuahuas, golden retrievers, etc are part of the sames species, the Canis lupus. The very definition of a species is one (and here is where the Gospel concept agrees) of a group of organisms that breeds "after its own kind." On the other hand, even though they are related genetically the varies wolf subspecies (this includes all domesticated dogs) cannot interbreed with members of the wider dog family: the Canidae, such as South American canids, foxes, African wild dogs, bat-eared foxes or raccoon dogs; or, if they could, their offspring would be infertile. This means that all canus lupus are not different species, but one species, or, using the gospel term, one kind. Hybrids do occur, rarely, but often enough that the line between what were traditionally different species blurs. An example would be the breeding of the Canis lupus with the common jackal, or, in the Hominid family, the breeding of the Homo Sapien (modern human) with the Homo Neanderthalensis (think Geico caveman).

A breeding program, unless carried over the period of several thousand lifetimes, is unlikely to produce a different species. Unless this breeding program was in a completely different environment in which the genetic relatives were not able to adapt and died out, there would likely be little divergence. The theory of evolution rests on the idea that a generalized ancestor (for which there is ample fossil evidenced), spread out, and, over time natural selection killed off those individuals whose characteristics were incompatible with their environment. The ones that survived, did so because their phenotypic/genotypic characteristics were able to survive in the environment. Over the years two different groups (lets say one living in a desert environment and the other a mountainous rainforest) emerged that bear little resemblance to each other to the point of not being able to breed. This can be seen in a key examples: bacteria relying on meiosis, placed in two different environments will change over time due to natural selection. When placed together again they are often not able to reproduce with one another. I can give other, very recent examples of speciation with even larger animals if you wish.

My point is not to destroy the Gospel concept that a species multiplies after its own kind. I believe that with all my heart. I just believe that a group from that species can break off, adapt to a different environment, and, over time, become something else. Even some LDS general authorities have unwittingly supported this idea.

I have my own working hypothesis that works well and doesn't savage the fall and atonement.

I can agree that he certainly oversimplified things.

While I don't agree with you about the theory of evolution's destruction of the Fall and the Atonement, I can respect your opinion. I'm glad we can agree on Darwin's oversimplification on the origin of species, even if its in different ways. He got somethings right (natural selection is an example of something that even the most ardent, literal creationist should be able to back. Case in point: Noah. Nature (controlled by God) destroys every human except Noah's family, leaving his genetics to make up the genetic material of the human race), something half-right and somethings wrong.

[bu11fr0g]

The original post is referring to transposons.The interpretations provided are entirely incorrect and have nothing to do with sexual transmission of genetic material, this is infectious transmission of genetic material. This occurs frequently now and is the cause of many cancers in humans.

See the article here: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/44/17023.short

[bcuzbcuz]

From The Guardian

I just love it when someone condenses a quite difficult article of scientific opinion and spits it back out as a few attention grabbing headlines. I love it even more when those headlines are then regurgitated as though they represent the essence of the actual study.

The actual article that the Guardian reporter (Ian Sample, science correspondent) squished into a few pithy lines was written by a group composed of Eric Bapteste1*, Maureen A O'Malley2, Robert G Beiko3, Marc Ereshefsky4, J Peter Gogarten5, Laura Franklin-Hall6, François-Joseph Lapointe7, John Dupré2, Tal Dagan8, Yan Boucher9 and William Martin8 who represent a wide variety of fields, 1 UPMC, UMR CNRS 7138, 75005 Paris, France

2 ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (Egenis), University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

3 Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

4 Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

5 Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, USA

6 Department of Philosophy, NYU, USA

7 Département de sciences biologiques, Université de Montréal, Montréal (Québec), Canada

8 Institute of Botany, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

9 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

The title of the article is "Prokaryotic evolution and the tree of life are two different things" and can be found at www.biology-direct.com/content/4/1/34

The Guardian writer seems to have ceased upon the following section. "In addition to its limits in accounting for the different evolutionary processes emphazised by the prokaryote/eukaryote divide, there are many methodological and epistemological reasons why tree-monism may not be any longer the most scientifically fruitful position from which to study microbial evolution."

The authors argue for a "Pluralism" approach to evolution as opposed to "Monism". That's like going back to discuss Keynesian economics arguing against the " monism" models for supply and demand. Or like criticisimg Bohr's diagrams and model of atoms. No one denies that " monism" models over- simplify the complex realities of the world around us. The problem is finding models that satisfy complexity and are yet understandable for the "common man".

All in all, I give the actual article, "Prokaryotic evolution and the tree of life are two different things" a big ''So What".

[thesometimesaint]

Do we teach "explanations" as fact...not usually. It is still theory, but in the sacred halls of education and often even in many churches today we are considered fools for not signing on to the party line. I once remembered getting shot down for suggesting that even though I believed in natural evolution...I believed that the creation of man was done by God in a singular event after the earth was ready.

Yes we do. It is a fact that we have gravity. The explanation of that fact is the Theory of Gravity. We have germs. The fact that some germs cause disease in humans(and other living things) is the Germ Theory of Disease. No one has ever seen a single electron. Yet we're using the Electron Theory right now as we communicate over the Internet.

I don't have a problem with God or with Science. God can and does tell me the why he did it, and Science tells me the how he did it.

[thesometimesaint]

Help! Help! Can someone point me to the captain of this sinking vessel? Oh. Nevermind - there you are...

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

[SamIam]

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Angelic ancestors

Edited May 17, 2013 by SamIam