Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (Full Version)

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Jhud -> Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/11/2008 1:39:33 PM)

Interesting case being published in the April 10th issue of Nature, detailed here in ScienceDaily.

Basically what has been found is that comb jellies, which are more genetically and morphologically complex than regular jellyfish or sponges, are actually older than either of these two groups.

The researcher who determined this expresses how surprising this finding is:

"This was a complete shocker," says Dunn. "So shocking that we initially thought something had gone very wrong."

But even after Dunn's team checked and rechecked their results and added more data to their study, their results still suggested that the comb jelly, which has tissues and a nervous system, split off from other animals before the tissue-less, nerve-less sponge.

Why was the finding ‘shocking’? Well it comes down to the fundamental Darwinian assumption that the tree of life represents increasing complexity over time.

Indeed, that is often the assumption that goes into inferring ancestry in fossil finds; simpler animals gave rise to more complex ones. Here we see a major contradiction to that assumption.

So it represents a failure of the predictive power of evolution.

It however fits the paradigm of ID, because in the ID paradigm, complexity is not dependent on gradual accumulations, but rather on the capabilities of the designer, and so is time independent. This find is evidence for that paradigm.

Indeed, the most likely explanation in this scenario is that many animals that were presumed to come earlier than comb jellies are actually organisms that have reduced genetic complexity, a notion proffered by the ID concept of front-loading.



essentialsaltes -> RE: Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/11/2008 2:30:20 PM)

I assume this genetic analysis was carried out upon living examples of comb jellies. I'm not sure how that translates to the complexity of their many times ancestors.



Jhud -> RE: Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/11/2008 2:35:54 PM)

quote:

I assume this genetic analysis was carried out upon living examples of comb jellies. I'm not sure how that translates to the complexity of their many times ancestors.


Did you actually read the article, or are you asking me to explain it to you?



essentialsaltes -> RE: Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/11/2008 3:38:25 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud

quote:

I assume this genetic analysis was carried out upon living examples of comb jellies. I'm not sure how that translates to the complexity of their many times ancestors.


Did you actually read the article, or are you asking me to explain it to you?


I read the article. I see that the jellies are now thought to have sprouted off here as opposed to there, but I don't see why their current complexity has to have been present at the time of that split. As the author states, possibly "the comb jelly evolved its complexity independently of other animals, after it branched off onto its own evolutionary path;"



Jhud -> RE: Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/11/2008 3:48:51 PM)

quote:

I read the article. I see that the jellies are now thought to have sprouted off here as opposed to there, but I don't see why their current complexity has to have been present at the time of that split. As the author states, possibly "the comb jelly evolved its complexity independently of other animals, after it branched off onto its own evolutionary path;"


Sure; it could be that the same genetic complexity as as other groups like Annelida, Entoprocta, Mollusca, Nemertea and Platyhelminthes arose wholly unique in comb jellies, despite the fact that one of the distinguishing factors, the spiral cleavage programme of embryonic development, is a highly complex process readily comprable between the groups.

If that is the case, then it casts into doubt morphological and genetic comparison all together - because if we say that similar complex genetic and morphological traits cannot serve as a basis of determining relationships, then the entire basis of creating cladograms is cast into doubt, as well as determining hierarchical relationships.

Is that your position?



essentialsaltes -> RE: Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/11/2008 4:30:25 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud

If that is the case, then it casts into doubt morphological and genetic comparison all together - because if we say that similar complex genetic and morphological traits cannot serve as a basis of determining relationships, then the entire basis of creating cladograms is cast into doubt, as well as determining hierarchical relationships.

Is that your position?


I don't know.



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/11/2008 7:16:45 PM)

I came across this
Tissue Regeneration

Which links to this

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/22/sunday/main3960219.shtml

I found it interesting. I want to make a prediction based on the notion that earlier life was more sophisticated than current life and based on this thread that iluvatar posted (but I think that we would need to study genetics far into the future to actually confirm this. I don't think this is something that would be confirmed anytime soon since we currently do not seem to have the sophistication yet, I would say it's way ahead of its time. This prediction assumes intelligent design to be true).

The link said

quote:


One machine, being tested in Germany, sprays a burn patient's own cells onto a burn, signaling the skin to re-grow.


It seems like humans (and possibly other animals) already have the genetic code to heal from wounds that are beyond our current ability to heal from. I think the only problem here is that the body doesn't know when and how to signal for tissue re - generation. I suspect that when humans (and other animals) were first created, they were sophisticated enough so that when someone got injured in such a way that would require substantial tissue re - generation, the organism (mostly the tissue around the injured area) would signal the body to heal that area. After receiving signals (signals similar to what are being administrated in the cbsnews link but the body will administer them with more sophistication) the body will re - generate the damaged tissue. While such a trait will help survivability, it's not required to survive. Over time, as humans (and other organisms) broke down, we lost this sophistication and only kept what is much more necessary to survive (what we have now). However, I predict that we will eventually find out that some of our broken genes (that some currently think is junk) actually code for the level of sophistication required to regenerate damaged tissue when needed. The body no longer knows when and/or how to trigger needed genes (or those genes are broken so that when they are triggered, they don't function properly).

If a gene does get triggered at a time of (or after) injury and that gene doesn't seem to do much good in the healing process, what we could do is see if it produces something similar to what is being produced in the cbsnews article. If so, one possibility is that it used to code for something similar but it broke in such a way that it no longer codes for anything that would completely heal the wound. Such ID research could yield substantial medical breakthroughs, we could try to manipulate what a broken gene is trying to code for. We might be able to apply such ID concepts to other situations as well (besides tissue regeneration) by figuring out what a broken gene used to code for and then manipulating it so that we can figure out what it did and how it can help us. Of course, darwinists will try to give the research an evolutionary spin, but the point is that it is still research that supports ID.



essentialsaltes -> RE: Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/11/2008 7:37:46 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
It seems like humans (and possibly other animals) already have the genetic code to heal from wounds that are beyond our current ability to heal from.


Another article in this month's Scientific American was about the ability to regrow limbs. Currently I'm getting a site down for maintenance message.



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/11/2008 7:46:45 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes
Another article in this month's Scientific American was about the ability to regrow limbs. Currently I'm getting a site down for maintenance message.


Thanks (though the link doesn't work right now). I suspect it's saying the same thing that iluvatar's link said. They also had a (rather irrelevant) discussion on Junk DNA here
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/they-still-insist-on-calling-it-junk/

Just in case anyone is interested.



drj11 -> RE: Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/13/2008 10:17:36 PM)

It should be interesting to see what comes of this. However, I found some more information on the placement of these jellyfish in the phylogenic tree:

quote:


The placement of ctenophores (comb jellies) as the sister group to all other sampled metazoans is strongly supported in all our analyses. This result, which has not been postulated before, should be viewed as provisional until more data are considered from placozoans and additional sponges. If corroborated by further analyses, it would have major implications for early animal evolution, indicating either that sponges have been greatly simplified or that the complex morphology of ctenophores has arisen independently from that of other metazoans. - Dunn, Casey W., et al. (2008) “Broad phylogenomic sampling improves resolution of the animal tree of life”, Nature 452:745-749 [Emphasis mine]


I suggest reading the whole article



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Early complexity as a criticism of evolution (4/14/2008 12:05:30 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: drj11
quote:


The placement of ctenophores (comb jellies) as the sister group to all other sampled metazoans is strongly supported in all our analyses. This result, which has not been postulated before, should be viewed as provisional until more data are considered from placozoans and additional sponges. If corroborated by further analyses, it would have major implications for early animal evolution, indicating either that sponges have been greatly simplified or that the complex morphology of ctenophores has arisen independently from that of other metazoans. - Dunn, Casey W., et al. (2008) “Broad phylogenomic sampling improves resolution of the animal tree of life”, Nature 452:745-749 [Emphasis mine]


I suggest reading the whole article


From your article

quote:


but leaves out the next part that explains how that even though the findings were a surprise, there are possible evolutionary explanations for this:


http://pigeonchess.wordpress.com/2008/04/13/comb-jellies-sponges-and-creationists-oh-my/

Well, yes, one could speculate a possible evolutionary explanations for just about any combination of evidence, which further demonstrates the unfalsifiable nature of UCD.



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