Is Evolution Universal?

[immortal]

Is Evolution is universal? Since evolution occured on earth it doesn't mean that on a different alien planet evolution should occur. There can be different designs to create life from not life.

[ecoli]

Well, for example, if alien forms of life are not based off of DNA, then obviously, their mechanisms for evolution will be way different... if they even evolve at all.

 

The possibilities are endless.

[JohnF]

I would say that as long as change is possible then evolution will occur. Evolution requires the ability to change, and competition; not necessarily direct competition though.

 

If a life form came in to existence on a planet and that life form had a mechanism that allowed change then change would occur. Once change has occurred you would have a variant of the original life form. If one of these two life forms had a competitive advantage over the other it would do better. In this way you will always get evolution.

 

Evolution even occurs in the market place with manufactured goods and services.

[jackson33]

we know of microscopic life on earth from 3.6 billion years ago. we do not know how long it or its past could have been.

 

we think heat, pressures and some electrical involvement could produce life, but then this is true in formation of matter.

 

we think from these microscopic entities, life evolved to complex and finally to us, as conditions changed on the planet.

 

from these thoughts and IMO, life could form as matter is formed, certainly early in the life of any matter. the conditions and directions for life to evolve the primary question....

[CDarwin]

If you have a lifeform (a breeding population) for which change from one generation to the next is impossible, (an 'immutable form'), then you can't have evolution. That doesn't necessarily mean that the lifeform wouldn't be subject to Darwinian principles, however. If there were other lifeforms (mutable or immutable) competing with our immutable little subject, then natural selection would still have a hand in deciding the fate of the species. You would have an odd instance where natural selection was occuring without changing the genetic makeup of a population, i.e. evolving it.

 

That doesn't happen on earth to the best of my knowledge.

[bombus]

Is Evolution is universal?

 

Yes. If life is that is... although chemicals evolve too.

[Realitycheck]

Is Evolution is universal? Since evolution occured on earth it doesn't mean that on a different alien planet evolution should occur. There can be different designs to create life from not life.

 

 

I'm really excited about chemical evolution. After all, what are we but an extremely large combination of chemical reactions. If we can get chemical compounds to split into self-replicating molecules (which has been accomplished), then the possibilities are endless. With all of the other elements and compounds available in the world, mutations are awaiting at every corner.

 

Of course, on other planets with different chemical make-ups, the possibilities are potentially more limited, but if it can happen, why not? 1 billion years is a long time to wait over an entire planet for something to happen. Somewhere else, maybe they just get chains of chemical compounds that feed off of each other, unseen to the naked eye, until it starts eating your eyes out.

 

This was a good one.

 

Technically, the self-replicating compound made by the MIT group is

called an amino adenosine triacid ester (AATE). This molecule was

initially formed by reacting two other molecules. [

 

The AATE replicates by attracting to one of its ends anester molecule,

and to its other end an amino adenosine molecule. These molecules react

to form another AATE. The "parent" and "child" AATE molecules then break

apart and can go on to build still more AATE molecules.

 

 

 

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1990/may09/23124.html

 

Self-Reproducing Molecules Reported by MIT Researchers

 

This one seemed pretty interesting, as well. If you can get a similarly basic outline of the Miller experiment to happen on another planet, then the possibilities really start openning up.

 

 

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/20/12733

 

Now, if we can get some of this RNA created by the Miller experiment to somehow mutate and start self-replicating itself, then somehow wind up in a lipidous enclosure like in the following article (though surely there is a plethora of other ways that these could have been produced rather than in deep space), then mutate again, possibly due to the presence of the lipid, then maybe we can get it to split.

 

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/space_cells_010129-1.html

[Dak]

agentchange, please do not copy/paste absolutely humongoid quantities of text from other websites.

 

copy a few bits if you need to highlight part of the article, or just link to the article itself; there's no need to copy the article in its entirety.

 

thanks.

[Dak]

minor point: evolution, as we currently understand it, does not explain the emergence of life from non-life.

 

evolution is a naturally occouring process, like gravity. there's no reason why it shouldn't happen on another planet, as long as certain base requirements are met. i'm not entirely sure what those are: ability to modify design, retention of design changes based upon the improvement that they confur, etc, probably.

 

it wouldn't neccesarily utilise DNA, tho.

 

as far as non-evolutionary processes creating life; life is incredibly complex, and the only two mechanisms (afaik) that are capable of creating complex life from nothing/relitively simple life are evolution and intelligent design.

 

so, on any planet where complex life exists, i think it's a safe bet that it was either intelligently designed, or evolved from simpler life.

 

(hey, look, ID being mentioned in a science discussion)

[foodchain]

I'm really excited about chemical evolution. After all, what are we but an extremely large combination of chemical reactions. If we can get chemical compounds to split into self-replicating molecules (which has been accomplished), then the possibilities are endless. With all of the other elements and compounds available in the world, mutations are awaiting at every corner.

 

Of course, on other planets with different chemical make-ups, the possibilities are potentially more limited, but if it can happen, why not? 1 billion years is a long time to wait over an entire planet for something to happen. Somewhere else, maybe they just get chains of chemical compounds that feed off of each other, unseen to the naked eye, until it starts eating your eyes out.

 

This was a good one.

 

 

 

 

 

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1990/may09/23124.html

 

Self-Reproducing Molecules Reported by MIT Researchers

 

This one seemed pretty interesting, as well. If you can get a similarly basic outline of the Miller experiment to happen on another planet, then the possibilities really start openning up.

 

 

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/20/12733

 

Now, if we can get some of this RNA created by the Miller experiment to somehow mutate and start self-replicating itself, then somehow wind up in a lipidous enclosure like in the following article (though surely there is a plethora of other ways that these could have been produced rather than in deep space), then mutate again, possibly due to the presence of the lipid, then maybe we can get it to split.

 

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/space_cells_010129-1.html

 

chemotaxis and chemotrophy are also good subjects to read on. I am greatly interested in such also as the chemistry of living systems is really stunning to learn about.

 

"Although migration of cells was detected from the early days of the development of microscopy (Leeuwenhoek), erudite description of chemotaxis was first made by T.W. Engelmann (1881) and W.F. Pfeffer (1884) in bacteria and H.S. Jennings (1906) in ciliates. The Nobel prize winner E. Metchnikoff also contributed to the study of the field with investigations of the process as an initial step of phagocytosis. The significance of chemotaxis in biology and clinical pathology was widely accepted in the 1930s. The most fundamental definitions belonging to the phenomenon were also drafted by this time. The most important aspects in quality control of chemotaxis assays were described by H. Harris in the 1950s. In the 1960s and 1970s, the revolution of modern cell biology and biochemistry provided a series of novel techniques which became available to investigate the migratory responder cells and subcellular fractions responsible for chemotactic activity. The pioneering works of J. Adler represented a significant turning point in understanding the whole process of intracellular signal transduction of bacteria.[1]

 

On November 3, 2006, Dr. Dennis Bray of University of Cambridge was awarded the Microsoft European Science Award for his work on chemotaxis on E. coli. [2][3]"

 

 

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

 

"Chicken soup has long been regarded as a remedy for symptomatic upper respiratory tract infections. As it is likely that the clinical similarity of the diverse infectious processes that can result in "colds" is due to a shared inflammatory response, an effect of chicken soup in mitigating inflammation could account for its attested benefits. To evaluate this, a traditional chicken soup was tested for its ability to inhibit neutrophil migration using the standard Boyden blindwell chemotaxis chamber assay with zymosan-activated serum and fMet-Leu-Phe as chemoattractants. Chicken soup significantly inhibited neutrophil migration and did so in a concentration-dependent manner. The activity was present in a nonparticulate component of the chicken soup. All of the vegetables present in the soup and the chicken individually had inhibitory activity, although only the chicken lacked cytotoxic activity. Interestingly, the complete soup also lacked cytotoxic activity. Commercial soups varied greatly in their inhibitory activity. The present study, therefore, suggests that chicken soup may contain a number of substances with beneficial medicinal activity. A mild anti-inflammatory effect could be one mechanism by which the soup could result in the mitigation of symptomatic upper respiratory tract infections."

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11035691

[aTruthSeeker]

Is Evolution is universal?

Better question is this... is evolution real and scientifically observable?

If we evolved from apes, why do we still have apes... and why aren't they turning human?

 

How do we know if the earth is really billions of years old? Have we concluded that by presupposing that life MUST have come from evolution?

If we date the layers of the "geologic column" by "index fossils" and date the "index fossils" by the layer that we find them in the "geologic column", isn't that circular reasoning?

 

Why are we still missing the "missing link"? Since we have so many species of animals and plants on earth, shouldn't there be a fossil record of transitional species... even a few examples would be nice. It sounds like we are missing the whole chain, not just a link.

 

Why would we give unintelligent forces credit for creating life, when we as intelligent beings can not create life without borrowing it from something living? We know all of the chemicals that make up a living creature, but why can't we assemble them into a living being? Somebody make an amoeba if they really are so simple!

 

What about irreducible complexity? If a creature can not live without certain parts, what did it do before it evolved to have those parts? And what on earth would the first living being eat anyway?

 

Why is spontaneous generation of life still being taught in our schools when Louis Pasteur disproved it back in 1859?

[JohnF]

so, on any planet where complex life exists, i think it's a safe bet that it was either intelligently designed, or evolved from simpler life.

 

It's interesting that you make the distinction of complex life for an intelligent design but by implication seem to disregard it for simpler life. If intelligent design were responsible for life then surely it would have to be responsible for any life; from there on you just need evolution.

 

Life from nothing would seem to have to rely on random interactions of chemicals. There may have been enough time since the planet was formed for those interactions to occur and for life to come in to existence. It is also possible that life was seeded on this planet from a comet and life had the age of the universe for those random interactions to occur and to come in to existence.

 

Even if intelligent design is responsible for life why is it assumed that evolution isn't part of that intelligent design; after all, it is quite a clever method and it allows for a diversity of life beyond design. If I were to design life I'd do it the easy way and then let it take it's own course. It would be much more fun to see what evolution came up with than just seeing nothing more than what I had made. Perhaps even an intelligent designer enjoys a surprise every now and then.

[Sisyphus]

JohnF, I don't think Dak was talking about life as a whole, just examples of life. i.e., if we find life somewhere, if it's not a product of evolution then it must be artificial. Most likely in the next century we'll have both kinds of life on Earth, the products of evolution (animals, plants, etc.), and those intelligently designed (robots that satisfy the definitions for life, synthetic bacteria, etc.)

 

Certainly that doesn't preclude the possibility that artificial life could then evolve. Indeed, if it self-replicates and undergoes changes that affect the efficiency of its replication, then it MUST evolve.

 

aTruthSeeker, is your name is accurate, and are you willing to actually talk about your questions instead of just flaming? In other words, is the falsehood of evolution an article of faith for you, or would you consider it if your objections were answered? If your answer is "but my objections won't be answered," then it's an article of faith, and we have nothing to talk about. However, there actually ARE perfectly reasonable answers to all of those questions. Some of them are based on misunderstandings about what "evolution" means. So can we have a conversation, or what?

 

Everyone else, please, for the love of god, stay level-headed. Flame wars are so annoying. And I figure there's a 40% chance he's just a troll, so just in case, please don't feed him?

[Phi for All]

Better question is this... is evolution real and scientifically observable?

If we evolved from apes, why do we still have apes... and why aren't they turning human?

 

How do we know if the earth is really billions of years old? Have we concluded that by presupposing that life MUST have come from evolution?

If we date the layers of the "geologic column" by "index fossils" and date the "index fossils" by the layer that we find them in the "geologic column", isn't that circular reasoning?

 

Why are we still missing the "missing link"? Since we have so many species of animals and plants on earth, shouldn't there be a fossil record of transitional species... even a few examples would be nice. It sounds like we are missing the whole chain, not just a link.

 

Why would we give unintelligent forces credit for creating life, when we as intelligent beings can not create life without borrowing it from something living? We know all of the chemicals that make up a living creature, but why can't we assemble them into a living being? Somebody make an amoeba if they really are so simple!

 

What about irreducible complexity? If a creature can not live without certain parts, what did it do before it evolved to have those parts? And what on earth would the first living being eat anyway?

 

Why is spontaneous generation of life still being taught in our schools when Louis Pasteur disproved it back in 1859?

This is your last posting of creationist garbage in our evolution forum. We waste too much time refuting it and people like you never listen.

 

You are woefully misinformed and haven't bothered to take the time to learn about what you disagree with. Please go to http://www.talkorigins.org and read everything you can (no, don't make that face) and then come back if you have anything original or interesting to say.

[JohnF]

I don't think Dak was talking about life as a whole, just examples of life. i.e., if we find life somewhere, if it's not a product of evolution then it must be artificial. Most likely in the next century we'll have both kinds of life on Earth, the products of evolution (animals, plants, etc.), and those intelligently designed (robots that satisfy the definitions for life, synthetic bacteria, etc.)

 

How weird will that be. Can you imagine an Evolution -v- Creationist forum in the future with members that are the evolutionary result of robots we designed and created. How will they answer those questions; especially if we, the designers, have been extinct for millennia.

[insane_alien]

well, robots are basically walking computers so they will function on logic. if they function on logic, and have the ability to transcend any ideological beliefs programmed into them by us then the argument would be impossible as the creationist robots would not exist.

[JohnF]

well, robots are basically walking computers so they will function on logic. if they function on logic, and have the ability to transcend any ideological beliefs programmed into them by us then the argument would be impossible as the creationist robots would not exist.

 

You're assuming that random evolution will not occur; a change due to an error perhaps. It would only require one change that interfered with the logic which then gave that particular robot variation the competitive advantage.

[insane_alien]

i'm not assuming that. i'm assuming that the bots never had any belief structure imposed on them in the beginning which would interfere with logic and be passed on generation to generation either through processor design or software.

[JohnF]

You're missing the point. If we develop robots that can reproduce themselves then it doesn't matter what we gave them to begin with; that's just their starting point. If they can reproduce, then during the reproduction an error could occur that becomes part of the mind of such a robot. I'm not saying that such an error is bound to occur, just that it could.

 

Further to that though you say the creationist robots would not exist. Why wouldn't they exist, after all they were created by us? And since they were created by us and evolved on their own how could you not have both points of view?

[Sisyphus]

Indeed. Religious beliefs in humans can be traced back to the course of our evolution. There's no reason to believe "robots" wouldn't follow a similar or at least analogous course. They might think quite differently from us, or they might not (depending on how closely we "create them in our image," so to speak). There's certainly no reason to think they would be especially "logical" in the way we use the word.

[Realitycheck]

I have a hard time believing that we could really develop a robot with anywhere near the complexity of a brain as ours. What can we do but program large sets of If/Then statements? Sure, we can mimic the process of getting it to think for itself, "How can I advance myself? What improvements can I make?", but isn't this dependent on how much information is already embedded and its ability to comprehend this information and process it? I just don't see it happening, at least not for another couple hundred of years. Moore's law doesn't cover artificial sentience. Either way, I bet we would abort it if it got too scary. There can only be one "God". Besides, how far have we gotten compared to where we thought we would be by now? Voice recognition software, robots that do exactly what we instruct it to, nowhere near the cyberpunk mythos.

[the tree]

There can be different designs to create life from not life.

You do know life-from-non-life is not evolution right?

[Sisyphus]

I have a hard time believing that we could really develop a robot with anywhere near the complexity of a brain as ours. What can we do but program large sets of If/Then statements? Sure, we can mimic the process of getting it to think for itself, "How can I advance myself? What improvements can I make?", but isn't this dependent on how much information is already embedded and its ability to comprehend this information and process it? I just don't see it happening, at least not for another couple hundred of years. Moore's law doesn't cover artificial sentience. Either way, I bet we would abort it if it got too scary. There can only be one "God". Besides, how far have we gotten compared to where we thought we would be by now? Voice recognition software, robots that do exactly what we instruct it to, nowhere near the cyberpunk mythos.

 

No we probably can't develop such a brain for a very long time. Such a thing, when it does exist, will probably come into being when we create a much simpler "brain" that mimics the process of evolution via reproducing itself with variation, and some selection pressure. By the time this brain can "think" we will likely have very little idea how it actually works.

[CDarwin]

I just really want to respond to this. Go to the link Phi sent you for more information, of course. If you really are a troll... you got me I suppose.

 

If we evolved from apes, why do we still have apes... and why aren't they turning human?

 

Two problems: A. Humans didn't evolve from modern apes. We evolved from the earlier hominids (for which we have an excellent fossil record), who themselves evolved from one of the families of extinct 'apes' that lived in the Miocene. B. Evolution isn't a progressive 'march to humanity.' Evolution is the cumulative effect on the gene pool of a population of natural selection and random events like mutation, 'genetic drift', and gene flow between different populations. The other Miocene apes didn't evolve into hominids because they weren't subject to the same selective pressures as our direct ancestors were.

 

How do we know if the earth is really billions of years old?

 

Uranium series and Potassium-Argon dating, I believe. Someone might want to check me on that.

 

Have we concluded that by presupposing that life MUST have come from evolution?

 

No. The acceptance of an ancient earth came first in geology years before On the Origin of Species and the wide acceptance of biological evolution. It was based originally on the amount of time it would take natural processes to shape the geological features we see on the the earth and in the geologic record. Now it's backed up by absolute dating techniques provided by geochronology.

 

If we date the layers of the "geologic column" by "index fossils" and date the "index fossils" by the layer that we find them in the "geologic column", isn't that circular reasoning?

 

No, because you aren't using the same columns and the same fossils. If you can absolutely date a layer of ash at Laetoli to 3 million years, and then you can find fossils in that ash and other dated locations that appear to occur in a limited period of time, then you can use those to arrive at provisional dates for sites for which absolute dates aren't available. That's how the date on the Toumai skull in Chad was arrived at.

 

Why are we still missing the "missing link"? Since we have so many species of animals and plants on earth, shouldn't there be a fossil record of transitional species... even a few examples would be nice. It sounds like we are missing the whole chain, not just a link.

 

Ok. Archaeopteryx. Australopithecus. The Therapsid reptiles. There are many others which I can't name off of the top of my head. Talk Origins has a more complete listing.

 

Here you go.

 

The 'missing link' is a fallacious concept anyway. It presumes that there is some one moment when an animals stops being a 'fish' and starts being a 'frog', but it forgets the fact that 'fish' and 'frog' are just arbitrary distinctions we apply in retrospect. Any animal could be a 'missing link.'

 

Why would we give unintelligent forces credit for creating life, when we as intelligent beings can not create life without borrowing it from something living?

 

Because we know that chemicals can assemble naturally to form the compounds of life. Just because we can't do it doesn't mean it can't be done naturally.

 

We know all of the chemicals that make up a living creature, but why can't we assemble them into a living being? Somebody make an amoeba if they really are so simple!

 

No one said it was simple. Again, just because we can't do it doesn't mean it can't happen naturally. I'm not sure about the technology now, but for most of human history we haven't been able to 'make' crystals. We can only allow them to precipitate naturally from a super-saturated solution. Does that mean crystals can only come from God?

 

If a creature can not live without certain parts, what did it do before it evolved to have those parts?

 

Live differently.

 

And what on earth would the first living being eat anyway?

 

The first living beings were probably chemosynthetic, which means they nourished themselves directly off of the chemicals in their environment. There are chemosythetic bacteria today in dark, anaerobic environments.

 

Why is spontaneous generation of life still being taught in our schools when Louis Pasteur disproved it back in 1859?

 

It isn't. Abiogenesis and spontaneous generation are two slightly different things. Spontaneous generation holds that the air can contain a 'life force' that will manifest itself into life whenever the conditions are right. Abiogenesis simply holds that life may have first arisen from the proper combination of chemical in the primordial past.

[immortal]

All the organisms on earth have the same genetic code and if life evolved simultaneosly at different places then their should be different genetic codes.This makes a strong point in favour of theory of panspermia.

 

My second point is the triplet codon UAG as we all know is a terminator but in some methanogenic bacterias it codes for the amino acid pyrrolysine.Is this vast randomness which makes the evolution going.