The sea urchin and front-loading
by KrauzeDon't let anyone tell you that Telic Thoughts has a monopoly on bringing you news about front-loading. We've gotten some competition from Intelligently Sequenced, where Nathan Munson writes:
As the articles states, "sea urchins are echinoderms, marine animals" and the purple sea urchin, "has 7,000 genes in common with humans, including genes associated with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases and muscular dystrophy." Of great interest to intelligent design advocates of front loading is the fact that although the sea urchin has no eyes, nose or ears it does have genes that are homologous to genes found in humans that are involved in vision, hearing and the sense of smell.
January 1st, 2007 at 11:13 am
The Sea Urchin (Echinodermata) and ourselves (Chordata) are members of the two major phyla comprising the Deuterostomia (secondary mouth). We are the animals in which the blastopore is destined to become the anus. Accordingly it should not be surprising to learn that we share many gene families as we do. In the other phyla which have an intestine, the mouth is derived from the blastopore and the anus is secondary. As one might suspect, they are called the Protostomia.
Isn't science wonderful?
That is my free Zoology lesson for today.
Happy New Year
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
Comment by John A. Davison — January 1, 2007 @ 11:13 am
January 1st, 2007 at 2:17 pm
I did not even see this until now; so caught up was I with the Dawkins stuff. I suspect there is much more out there. Once you acquire the view that something is possible your mind becomes open to new ways of thinking. Since I read about the referenced genes I have become curious as to what, if any, function they have in the sea urchin.
Comment by Bradford — January 1, 2007 @ 2:17 pm
January 1st, 2007 at 5:07 pm
What, if any, function did many of the bizarre features of the dinosaurs have? The whole question of adaptation is an assumption for which very little direct evidence exists. The Darwimpians provide an explanation for EVERYTHING They claim EVERYTHING arose through mutation and selection when in fact NOTHING originated that way, absolutely NOTHING.
Does anything arise through mutation during ontogeny? No indeed! Then one can be equally certain that nothing in phylogny ever arose that way either. Ontogeny remains the perfect model for phylogeny.
"Neither in the one nor in the other is there room for chance."
Leo Berg, Nomogenesis, page 134.
Here is a brief and incomplete list of factors that never had anything to do with true speciation or the formation of any of the higher taxonomic categories.
1. Allelic mutation.
2. Natural or artificial selection.
3. Genetic drift.
4. Population genetics.
5. Mendelian genetics.
6. Gradualism.
7. Sexual reproduction.
All evolutionary progress resulted from instantaneous genetic transformations which took place on a predetermined schedule in the germinal lines of those progressively fewer organisms which were the stem organisms. They became fewer and fewer in number with geologic time and there is no evidence that any still exist. Like ontogeny, phylogeny was a self-limiting phenomenon. Ontogeny terminates with the death of the individual and phylogeny terminates now, as it always has, with the extinction of the species. Apparently extinction is the only thing occurring at present and all that has been occurring for a very long time. Get used to it. Robert Broom did, Julian Huxley did, Pierre Grasse did and so have I.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
Comment by John A. Davison — January 1, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
January 1st, 2007 at 5:30 pm
I invite all to visit Alan Fox 's blog
alanfox.blogspot.com/
where the out patients there from After the Bar Closes are still insisting that Martin and I are the same person. It is hilarious.
It is hard to believe isn't it?
I love it so!
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
Comment by John A. Davison — January 1, 2007 @ 5:30 pm