Can Manipulating Key Evolutionary Genes Cause a "Devolution"

[Bill Nye Guy]

alright i was reading and watching alot about genetic engineering and about how scientists can manipulate certain genes, find what function it creates and change the gene to what they want to.

 

Now this question might sound stupid, but is it possible that if scientists manipulated the key genetic difference (2% or so) that seperates us from Great Apes, they could infact cause a form of devolution , so the individual who is inserted with this changed DNA will have many qualties, characteristics, and similarties to some of our recent ancestors.

 

I do know that there is a difference in the amount of chromosomes between humans and great apes. However i also read recentally that scientists found a family in Turkey that has for a long time, had kids who walked on all fours and in fact had trouble speaking human language (if they can speak the human language at all).

 

If anyone can give me any information or personal thoughts about this matter, i would greatly appreciate it....thanks again all!!!!!

[Steph]

However i also read recentally that scientists found a family in Turkey that has for a long time, had kids who walked on all fours and in fact had trouble speaking human language (if they can speak the human language at all).

 

WTF!! This is extremely disturbing to me... you have any sources?

 

as for modifying genes... uhm, i guess it'd be possible, but 2% amounts to a rather large amount of genes (i always forget the number... 600?)

[Bill Nye Guy]

sorry for delay

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4782492.stm

 

That is the link for the family i mentioned. It doesn't have all the information some sites had but it should help describe what talked about.

 

 

Would there be anyway to cause a devolution effect to those 600 or so genes. If not, would there be some way to cause a rapid evolution to the 2% genes in the great apes so that they show some human qualities?

 

Thanks again for the information.

[augment]

I'm just a lover of the science and have no college studying but from my understanding of it you would need the genome map of an ape(I don't know if they already have this or not) and human genome map which we already have. You could then probably take human DNA and modify it to be like an apes. However if I recall they don't really know what a lot of our genes actually do yet . And also why would you want to deevolve people. I'd think one would want to improve on the human genome, not set it back. This is just my not really educated that much opinion so maybe someone whose smarter in this thing could chime in.

 

Recalling a Star Trek episode. The Klingons too "augment" dna and tried to modify it to work for Klingons. The changes worked at the start but their neural pathways degraded. One of their test subjects was not screened properly and they had a virus in their body. The augment DNA changed the virus and it became airborne and started to travel between planets(continents for are century) and infected all Klingons.

 

We don't know what messing with our DNA will bring about. It needs to be slowly developed. I believe we can't rush something like this although there are people who will and are probably already working towards creating human "augments" of their own.

 

-John

[jeskill]

alright i was reading and watching alot about genetic engineering and about how scientists can manipulate certain genes' date=' find what function it creates and change the gene to what they want to.

 

Now this question might sound stupid, but is it possible that if scientists manipulated the key genetic difference (2% or so) that seperates us from Great Apes, they could infact cause a form of devolution , so the individual who is inserted with this changed DNA will have many qualties, characteristics, and similarties to some of our recent ancestors.

 

I do know that there is a difference in the amount of chromosomes between humans and great apes. However i also read recentally that scientists found a family in Turkey that has for a long time, had kids who walked on all fours and in fact had trouble speaking human language (if they can speak the human language at all).

 

If anyone can give me any information or personal thoughts about this matter, i would greatly appreciate it....thanks again all!!!!![/quote']

 

I haven't seen the scientific paper that goes along with this story, but IMO, I very much doubt that the Turkish family is an example of "deevolution". I would hypothesize that it's more likely an example of novel recessive gene mutations that are expressed because of inbreeding. For one thing, I'm pretty sure our ancestors walked on their knuckles and not on their palms of their hands as these people do.

 

But really, that's just a guess on my part.

[Sisyphus]

1) There's no such thing as "deevolution."

 

2) We didn't evolve from great apes. We and the great apes had a relatively recent common ancestor. To take human DNA and alter it to the point of being like one of the great apes, that would be moving sideways, not backwards.

 

3) Inbreeding can result in recessive traits manifesting themselves, which might explain your Turkish family. But they'd still be just as human as you or me, just with some unfortunate defects. Apes are not defective humans.

 

4) Klingons aren't real.

[DrZoidberg]

Interesting topic. Firstly i should highlight that 'creating a monkey' from a human transcript or vice versa is impossible at this point in time. It is simply not a case of transferring missing genes. The importance of gene interaction and expression is becoming more evident in the way DNA 'works'. Alot of important differences may for example exist within introns of other genes or genes shared by us and our primate cousins. Furthermore novel signal codons (or novel genes) within 'junk' DNA stretches (obselete term i know, should be DNA of no known or lacking function) may of yet to be uncovered and play vital gene regulatory roles.

The point really is genomes work collectively and 'cut and paste' of sequences have a high chance of missense or complete confusion.

 

However with the advance of microarrays, greater understanding of gene interaction may one day lead to a monkey with the ability of speech via vocal chord/neural/brain enhancements!

[Milken]

Overall, it's ridiculous. De-evolution exists, it's when an organism loses genetic information. Evolution is suppose to add genetic information, that's one reason I have a problem with most mutations causing evolution.

[rooters]

I am no scientist (I wish I was but did not become interested in the sciences until I was 35 and I still am 35)!

 

anyway, my contribution is that we could not exactly match human DNA since my DNA will differ from yours (the reader). If I understand correctly that we (all living species) roughly have 30,000 dna strings then I cannot see in the future how we could not build a human from a mouse! since it is looking like the only difference between us is the timing and sequence that genes activate etc etc..........

 

feel free to criticise, or support

[swansont]

Overall, it's ridiculous. De-evolution exists, it's when an organism loses genetic information. Evolution is suppose to add genetic information, that's one reason I have a problem with most mutations causing evolution.

 

No, anyone who uses the term "de-evolution" in a scientific context has blatantly declared that they do not posess anything past a lay understanding of evolution; this is a very low hurdle if you are trying to have a scientific discussion. (and how worthwhile is a lay discussion of scientific matters?) Which might explain (some of) your self-confessed problem.

 

Similarly, anyone who uses "deceleration" in a scientific context has declared they do not understand anything past the first day or so of physics 101.

[Bill Nye Guy]

"No, anyone who uses the term "de-evolution" in a scientific context has blatantly declared that they do not posess anything past a lay understanding of evolution; this is a very low hurdle if you are trying to have a scientific discussion. (and how worthwhile is a lay discussion of scientific matters?) Which might explain (some of) your self-confessed problem.

 

Similarly, anyone who uses "deceleration" in a scientific context has declared they do not understand anything past the first day or so of physics 101"

 

lol, its interesting you say that because my ap bio teacher (i am a high schooler) spent awhile teaching us about de-evolution.

 

"2) We didn't evolve from great apes. We and the great apes had a relatively recent common ancestor. To take human DNA and alter it to the point of being like one of the great apes, that would be moving sideways, not backwards"

 

I know we didnt evolve from apes, what i am trying to say is reverse the time table of evolution so we hit a common ancestor (for both apes and humans). Something like homo erectus.

[ashennell]

Now this question might sound stupid, but is it possible that if scientists manipulated the key genetic difference (2% or so) that seperates us from Great Apes, they could infact cause a form of devolution , so the individual who is inserted with this changed DNA will have many qualties, characteristics, and similarties to some of our recent ancestors.

 

Ermm... we already have most of the qualities, charactersitics and similarities of our recent ancestors.

 

As a few people have pointed out, any such changes would not be considered de-evolution as the concept doesn't make sense. To answer your queston properly I think some clarification is needed. Do you want to :-

 

1. make some changes to DNA so that we are more like what we think are direct ancesters were, or more like monkeys, apes, etc. e.g. hairy everywhere except our behinds. OR

 

2. actually use some process on our DNA that reveals our true genetic ancestor. Effectively reversing what happened over our recent evolution and hence the temptation to use the term de-evolution.

 

I think there is a difference between these two processes.

The first approach is plausible in prinicple but we would need to work out each change that needed to be made to the genome. Something we can't do at the moment.

The second approach I am skeptical about. It would require the generation of an inverse model that spanned this period of evolution. I think techniques similar to this are being used in evolutionary biology but I doubt they are intended to serve this purpose.

 

If you want to get to a common ancester of humans and apes it would be easier to start from apes than from humans, I would guess.

 

It's a strange idea though so I may be writing a load of rubbish.

 

4) Klingons aren't real.

Probably true. I wonder if there any crazed trekkies who have tried to have themselves officially declared Klingon.

 

If I understand correctly that we (all living species) roughly have 30,000 dna strings then I cannot see in the future how we could not build a human from a mouse! since it is looking like the only difference between us is the timing and sequence that genes activate etc etc..........

 

Genome size differs considerably between speices. I found this page that lists the number of chromosomes for a few different species:

 

http://morgan.rutgers.edu/morganwebframes/level1/page2/ChromNum.html

 

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by building a human from a mouse. Do you mean, actually make a living mouse change into a human?

[Edtharan]

Overall, it's ridiculous. De-evolution exists, it's when an organism loses genetic information. Evolution is suppose to add genetic information, that's one reason I have a problem with most mutations causing evolution.

Ahh, so now I understand your confusion over evolution. Mutation is any change to the genome of an organism, weather it is additions, deletions, movements, or anything that results in change. So loosing genetic infomation is not de-evolution, it is mutation. There is no such thing as de-evolution (except in some tacky sci-fi novels and movies).

 

Evolution, also, is not just mutation. Evolution is the process where a change in the genome (through mutation), is selected for survival (or extinction) due to natural selection. You seem to be able to accept the fact of Mutation and Natural Selection, but can not seem to see how they interact with each other to produce what is called evolution.

 

If we tinker with the genome of an organism, it is called Genetic Engineering, not De-evolution. If this change occures naturaly, it is called mutation (note: these could both be considdered as just mutation, but that is realy just a matter of semantics).

[Steph]

I am no scientist (I wish I was but did not become interested in the sciences until I was 35 and I still am 35)!

 

anyway' date=' my contribution is that we could not exactly match human DNA since my DNA will differ from yours (the reader). If I understand correctly that we (all living species) roughly have 30,000 dna strings then I cannot see in the future how we could not build a human from a mouse! since it is looking like the only difference between us is the timing and sequence that genes activate etc etc..........

 

feel free to criticise, or support [/quote']

 

I'm criticizing! no really, just pointing out that the 30 000 is the number of genes, not strings. also, the amount of genes differs greatly in animals. If Dna was the "end all" genetic code, it might work just through changing things through it. but we have discovered in the years following the Project that its not the only thing involved. RNA and Protein folding are important, and probably other things too... hence the incredible amount of "omic" sciences now!

 

so, in the end, making an animal from another animal is science-fiction. for now at least.

 

and about de-evolution, it obviously doesn't exists, but did anyone not understand what he meant?

[wpenrose]

Would there be anyway to cause a devolution effect to those 600 or so genes. If not' date=' would there be some way to cause a rapid evolution to the 2% genes in the great apes so that they show some human qualities?

 

[/quote']

 

Who says it's devolution anyway? Maybe the Intelligent Designed decided that bipedalism was a bad idea, and She's putting humans back on all fours where they belong.

 

Dangerous Bill

[Milken]

Okay, I'm not declaring de-evolution as a scientific term. ToE went from simple to complex, hence more genetic information, how by mutation. The overall trend is suppose to be forward. I understand some exceptions as evolution is not linear. If mutations continue to occur that are deletions(not all are), how would an organism ever progress forward like evolution suggests? I call it de-evolution.

As far as I'm concerned if millions of good mutations add information and it's evolution, don't shoot me for saying millions of bad mutations deleting information is de-evolution. . . .

[swansont]

Okay' date=' I'm not declaring de-evolution as a scientific term. ToE went from simple to complex, hence more genetic information, how by mutation. The overall trend is suppose to be forward. I understand some exceptions as evolution is not linear. If mutations continue to occur that are deletions(not all are), how would an organism ever progress forward like evolution suggests? I call it de-evolution.

As far as I'm concerned if millions of good mutations add information and it's evolution, don't shoot me for saying millions of bad mutations deleting information is de-evolution. . . .[/quote']

 

simple to complex? No, not necessarily.

forward? No, that's an arbitrary distinction, and the root of your misunderstanding. Evolution has no overall "direction." That is dictated solely by the environment at the time.

[swansont]

"No' date=' anyone who uses the term "de-evolution" in a scientific context has blatantly declared that they do not posess anything past a lay understanding of evolution; this is a very low hurdle if you are trying to have a scientific discussion. (and how worthwhile is a lay discussion of scientific matters?) Which might explain (some of) your self-confessed problem.

 

Similarly, anyone who uses "deceleration" in a scientific context has declared they do not understand anything past the first day or so of physics 101"

 

lol, its interesting you say that because my ap bio teacher (i am a high schooler) spent awhile teaching us about de-evolution.

 

[/quote']

 

 

LOL. Argument from authority is a logical fallacy, and "my AP bio teacher said so" isn't even particularly good argument from authority*. You have to consider the possibilty that you misunderstood the teacher, or that the teacher was wrong. Both happen.

 

(*Note that I mean no disrespect toward your AP bio science teacher. I have a lot of respect for teachers, but the simple fact is that at that level of instruction, without knowing more about the individual, it is difficult to consider the teacher an "authority" on any subject. Relative to the students, the teacher is an authority. But you'll be amazed at what you'll learn when you go to college/university compared to high school)

[DrZoidberg]

simple to complex? No' date=' not necessarily.

forward? No, that's an arbitrary distinction, and the root of your misunderstanding. Evolution has no overall "direction." That is dictated solely by the environment at the time.[/quote']

 

Well stated! evolution IS de-evolution and vice versa. In otherwords de-evolution does not exist, evolution takes unstated pathways and if that means refining complexity to simplicity so be it.

[Edtharan]

ToE went from simple to complex, hence more genetic information, how by mutation.

A common mutation that can occure in the copying of genetic infomation is that of repetition of a sequance. For example take the sequance: TGG (this is the sequance for Tryptophan). If this were to double then a sequance TGGTGG could occure. Now if a further mutation could occure in one of the TGG codons then you might get: TGGTGA (TGA is the sequance for Cysteine). Here we have the a the creation of new genetic material and it changeing into a differnet sequance. If this was part of an active gene then this would cause changes in the protein, which could translate into a different developemnt of the organism.

 

there is a lot of redundency in both the codon sequance and the production of proteins, so this type of mutation might not cause any imediate change in the expression of the gene in the organism, but there will eventuall occure a mutation that will cause all the mutation to express in the organism and a visable change in the organism will occure.

 

Also whole sections of genes can be replicated (hundreds, if not thousands of codons long) and can be replicated more than once (eg the TGG could be TGGTGGTGGTGGTGGTGGTGGTGGTGG...) and posable thousands of times. Also the reverse can happen and sections can get deleted.

 

See here: http://gslc.genetics.utah.edu/units/disorders/mutations/mutatedna.cfm

for better infomation on this.

 

Our DNA is not all about the production of proteins. It also has control section that can turn other sections on or off according to various other chemicals in the cell. Some of the "Junk" or more accurately called "Non Coding DNA" (as it does seem to have a purpose), might have other uses, but one use seems to be as a buffer for these kinds of mutation.

 

If these repititions or deletions occure in an area of Non Codeing DNA then there will not be any major effect on the organism. However if the mutation cause some of this Non Caodeing DNA to become Codeing DNA, then you will also have the expression of the genes in the organism, but untill then, as long as the section remains Non Codeing, then there can be as many or few additions, Deletions, Single Letter Substitutions and other mutations without it effecting the organism.

 

Going back to the TGG codon. A single Mutation (to TGA) can cause it to become a Stop Codon. This is a control codon and is used to determine (among other components) the end of a particular sequance of a Protein.

 

Another control sequance if that of ATG and is kind of the Start codon for a sequance and used for determining the reading frame for a particular sequance.

 

So as you can see, additions and deletions can occure as well as changes in the actual codon letters (single letter, or point mutations). The intercocetedness of the DNA sequances in that a particular sequance can be reliant on other factors out side of the DNA its self or within the DNA, means that simple mutations can have vast consiquences and that the redundancy of DNA and that of Proteins means that not all mustation need to cause expressable effects.

 

As for complexity. Yes organisms have become more complex over time, but some organisms have also become less complex. Take for instance a virus. this is just a sequance or RNA that can hijack a cells "machinery" to reproduce its self. Iit is a prety simple section of RNA code. However, virus could not exist without a cell in the first place. So Virus have evolved after the evolution of DNA replication and normal cells. It had evolved froma more complex organism and become a more simpler organism. So evolution is not synonomous with increasing complexity, it is change (for more complex or less complex) due to mutation and natural selection.

 

Also the "Forwards" concept can also be proved wrong in a similer way. But ther is another way that forwards can be shown to be wrong.

 

One may considder humans to be the pinacle of evolution, we are intelegent, top of the food chain and we can manipulate other organisms to do our bidding. But we can be killed by a small virus (like influenza). Which is the more superior organism? Is it the organism that is the parasite or the organism that is being the host to the parasite?

 

If you drop the Homeocentric view, then you will see that the above is actually a trick question. Niether organism is supperior to the other (this is where a lot of political aplications of evolution falls down they assume that there is a measure of superiority).

[Milken]

Bill Nye Guy,

Don't worry about those logical fallacies, especially people who point them out all the time as if they're right because they pointed out a logical fallacy. As if I can point out enough logical fallacies and be right.

 

Others,

If I make a phylogetic hierarchy of animals it's suppose to end up as a bush or tree right? The more complex animals of each kind tend to be higher. What's at the bottom? What's at the top? No ToE does not have a purpose or a goal. Yes I am able to identify a pattern or trend after it's happened, as stated earlier. Ofcourse, Natural selection does not have a goal or purpose, I assume that's what Swan thought I meant by trend.

Natural selection is chance and neccesity(survival o f) as a result the better adapted will live in given environment. Anyone's phylogetic tree has a simple to complex trend, not goal or purpose. Natural selection did not have humans in mind when the first bacteria was here but now that it's happened, I surely feel more complex than a bacteria.

As an overall trend from the first organism until now, call me crazy, but I think evolution would have had a trend of adding information to the genome of surviving animals in order to get to where we are now.

I'm quite aware that all mutations are not deletions. IF all surviving species had an overall trend of deleterious mutations, the trend is backward, hence de-evolution. IF there were only deletions as mutations, we wouldn't be here.

I'm also aware of the trend for EVERYTHING to be evolution. People go to the store and get groceries, it's food evolution, eat all the food, it's food evoluton. Seven people go to the store at the same time, it's convergent food evolution.

[Skye]

Stephen J Gould created an analogy of the inevitibility of increasing complexity in life which he called the drunk's walk. Basically imagine a drunk stumbling along sidewalk, on one side is a wall and the other side the gutter. If he staggers randomly from side to side, his movement towards the wall is always blocked, allowing him to stagger back towards the gutter, which he'll eventually reach by randomly stepping in that direction a certain number of times.

 

It's a fairly similar situation with life, it presumably started off quite simple, somewhere near some minimum level of complexity. If you don't like the concept of a minimum complexity, just imagine nothing. So if wanders over to the more simple side it is liable to bump up against minima/nothingness. While on the other hand, it is free to move out towards the complex side as far as it likes. And eventually he'll reach some threshold, like say being as complex as a human.

 

In reality there are some important differences. For one there are many different types of organisms, all stumbling along. And there is selection, which takes into account the physical laws that place great constraints on organisms. This makes their walk more orderly and constrained.

 

So despite the tendency towards complexity, life has for the most part resisted it. Most of life, especially the successful life, has stayed very small. If your job is to replicate, then having much less to replicate makes the task that much easier. Consequently some organisms show signs that they have been simplified, including their genome, in order to become reproductive masters.

[CharonY]

Others' date='

If I make a phylogetic hierarchy of animals it's suppose to end up as a bush or tree right? The more complex animals of each kind tend to be higher. What's at the bottom? What's at the top? [/quote']

 

I think you are confusing things here. If you build a phylogenetic tree, every now living organsims are at the same level or height.

Do not get confused by split offs in radial trees, they are sometimes bent just to visualize things.

That is, now living protists, bacteria, animals and so on are on one level. Nodes further down the branches indicate common ancestors. What you see in such a tree (depending on how it is built) is for instance when the lineages split (if using e.g. molecular clocks) or the relation of different lineages to each other.

So basically you do not get a tree from simple -> complex.

In addition, a larger amount of genetic information does not equal complexity.

An amoeba for instance has one of the largest genome sizes known to date (order of magnitudes higher).

 

Other than that I do again have to stress (as have several others in various threads) that evolution is neither about direction nor complexity but it merely indicates changes in the allele (basically sequence variations on a given chromosomal locus) frequency in a given population.

[pink_trike]

(and how worthwhile is a lay discussion of scientific matters?)

I've always suspected that science had morphed into a religion.

[rooters]

Genome size differs considerably between speices. I found this page that lists the number of chromosomes for a few different species:

 

http://morgan.rutgers.edu/morganwebf.../ChromNum.html

 

I thought chromosome size differs within same species too such as the common house mouse, this I think is why chromosone numbers are not really related to ancestory modelling. Is the chromosone not the package that contains the dna and all species roughly have 30,000 dna "strings"

 

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by building a human from a mouse. Do you mean, actually make a living mouse change into a human?

 

I am referring to how the development of a mouse uses the same approx quantity od DNA as human and the similarity is quite large in a percentage. The main difference is how when and what order genes are turned on?