JaJa, I'm very familiar with Electrostatics. I'll try to be more clear. In standard evolutionary theory it describes changes as mutations, genetic drift etc. DNA is extraordinarily robust when copying, but is not perfect and occasionally errors occur. Evolution purports that the accumulation of these errors combined with natural selection drives speciation. At the most rudimentary level, this is explained in terms of chemical processes. If you are proposing that electrostatics can induce changes on the DNA level, I'm simply asking for a comprehensive explanation of this process. Thanks for posting the TPOD, that is a good place to start. I'll research that some more.
JaJa wrote:I’d be interested in your views on how evolution accounts for lizards and salamanders being able to re-generate limbs. Considering humans are supposed to be at the top of the evolutionary tree why haven’t we and other species evolved with the same magical trait?
Humans are not the "top of the evolutionary tree", there is no such thing. Those creatures evolved regenerative limbs, humans evolved abstract thought and language. Neither is more "advanced" than the other, just different.
JaJa wrote:I'm sorry but what is relatively stable supposed to mean. We have no way of reverse engineering planetary environments millions or billions of years. If bacteria have been around since the dawn of time this means they would be a common ancestor according to Darwin. The rate at which bacteria mutate we should expect to see a zoo of strange intermediates both past and present.
How much more time do we need and what can we expose bacteria to that it hasn't already been exposed to over the life-span of the earth? Bacteria has been subjected to millions/billions of years of different environments and planetary changes but we do not observe them in the process of speciation (at any stage). From the dawn of time until now has been a very long and strenuous test and yet this apparent common ancestor only mutates into different strains of bacteria and not something else. Are we to assume that because we are in a relatively stable environment that bacteria has simply stopped evolving.
Ok, this is where I'm going to need to spend a little more time to properly address all points. Evolutionary theory does NOT claim that animal's evolved from bacteria. It does say that they had a common ancestor and then diverged. This common ancestor does not exist today in any form. I'm not trying to be pretentious here, but bacteria would not be expected to evolve into complex life forms. Plants/Animals are Eukaryotic cells and Bacteria and Archea are Prokaryotic cells. In addition to Eukaryotes cells being an order of magnitude larger than Prokaryotes, they are significantly different structurally. You can google the differences, but the Eukaryotic cell structure is much better adept at becoming multicellular and vertical evolution (increased complexity) whereas a Prokaryotic cell is more adept at horizontal evolution (broad adaptation). Plants/Animals have relatively few Phylogenic trees as compared to the veritabal cornucopia of phylogenies of bacteria and archae. This has led to the ubiquity of bacteria across the biosphere and allowed them to enter habitats that were originally considered inhospitable i.e. acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, deep seas and the earth's crust. Bacteria cells are structurally more efficient as unicellular organisms and would require significant changes to become multicellular structures. There are currently very few bacteria that even show those traits as they group into collectives like slime and biofilms. A bacteria turning into an animal is about as likely as a tree evolving legs, uprooting itself and finding a new place to live. Is a lifeform like this possible? maybe, but not very likely.
JaJa wrote:What do these same studies say about information transfer to DNA via laser light or radio waves?
Nothing, although I would like to see some more data in this area if you have it.
Thanks to ItJustMakesSense for posting those articles. I have read on that experiment before. It is very interesting. I have no problem with rapid evolution.
webolife wrote:It is a presupposition because there is no actually data from which to judge a starting position for the alleged genetic drift. Based on commonality of structures and functions, would you not expect that organisms having similar functions or physiology might demonstrate similar genetic structures? This is regardless of the mechanism behind those similarities.
Commonality of structure or function does not necessarily require similar genetics. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolutionwebolife wrote:It has been said of chimpanzees that there are more differences between different subspecies than between chimps and humans!
Once a species has diverged, it says nothing about the degree of genetic differentiation from one species to the next in a family. They experience different rates of change based on numerous factors.
webolife wrote:ERV's... What they do not help is the need in macroevolution for a continuous long term supply of new information to feed the stream of simple to complex biodiversity.
I'm not sure I follow, please expound.
Look, I'm not opposed to alternative model's of speciation and biodiversity and I'm not a cheerleader of the current evolutionary theory. It is just the most sound explanation that I have come across to date.