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I watched today a NatGeo documentary summarizing some research done as recently as the fall of 2009, and which is still ongoing. The results came to light solely because of the novel and imaginative application of very reliable and proven high tech equipment. The march of scientific advances knows no limits!
Specifically, CAT scanning or microscopy of thin slices of fossilized dinosaur bones, or even of actual bones preserved in the great mud-rock basins of Colorado and Wyoming. Those studies have provided undeniable evidence of bone structure and functionality in ancient animals.
In a nutshell, this work centered on understanding the behavior and evolution of dinosaurs. Such luminaries as Dr. Jack Horner, a well-known paleontologist working at the Univ. of the Rockies, Dr. Mark Goodman, paleontologist at UC Berkley, and Dr. Thomas Carr, at The U. of Carthage, have all investigated the DNA in modern and older animals.
One of these folks saw clear indications of vestigial dino-like teeth in modern bird embryos. Since we all evolved from some common ancestors, that fact has given us clues as to where in an organism's chromosomes we'd most likely find genetic code information necessary to produce teeth. What was totally surprising what that, given these new techniques, they were able to find, in modern chickens, the genes potentially responsible for tooth production.
They also found some repressor genes nearby on the chromosome. Those repressor genes are in known locations mostly adjacent to specific determinant genes, and so we can point to them in similar or identical locations on most all species. (In and of itself, another minor proof of common evolution, but for now, I"ll ignore that obvious fact...).
Purely speculating, they then turned off those repressors, and guess what? The chicken embryos produced teeth exactly like they have seen in also-recent CAT-scans of embryonic dinosaurs. The researchers did not add tooth genes; they simply turned off the system that's functionally utilized to prevent their "expression" in the organism. Hmmm.....
Next, they found a location for tail vertebrae. We know where that gene set is usually located in modern lizards and crocodillians. Remember, for instance, our own vestigial tailbone? It's only the size and limited length it is because the longer version has been turned off. The info for a longer simian tail is apparently still in us! (Wow! A prehensile tail. How useful at a singles bar, huh?). Chickens usually have about 5 tailbone vertebrae. By comparison, a velociraptor has 16 to 22, depending on sub-species. On a simple visual comparison basis, one might thus initially assume the chicken and velociraptor-type dinosaurs have an unrelated lineage, yes?
Well.... no.
They turned off the related suppressor genes in chicken DNA, and again, no real surprise now, the embryo developed 16 vertebrae. Just like in the chicken's ancient ancestor, the velociraptor. Or the recently-found Gobi desert 80 million year-old feathered dinosaur sinornithomimus. Not only in the number count, but again to no-one's surprise, the appearance, spacing and shape was near-identical. Wow # 2.
So now: Option One: absent any evolutionary influence, we have an Intelligent Designer who, with the ability to instantly do anythingimaginable in the massive universe, goes to the odd illogical trouble of placing unused or repressed DNA into each animal species. Even across species types! DNA that exactly duplicates that which we also find in ancient or even modern ancestors, like crocs or lizards. He also purposefully places ancient viral particle DNA (that's how viruses take over: they insert and then take over cellular replication for their own nefarious ends...) in human and other animal's DNA, which are then purposefully turned off to repress their ability to create damage? Seems oddly inefficient, no?
Similarly, we find older versions of viral DNA in chimps and their lemur predecessors, nearly identical to what we also now find in our human chromosomes. The only difference? Ours show some degrees of predictable and suitably "reproductively aged" viral DNA. It's even "aged" at about the rate we have previously predicted if we've in fact been around as long as evolutionary biologists estimate. How peculiar, huh?
Anyhow, alternately and clearly, Option Two: these recent finds in bird DNA simply prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that they arose from a particular group of dinosaurs tens of millions of years ago, given the opportunities for a tree-dwelling, bird-like ancestor developing in an ever-changing ancient ecosystem.
Stay tuned for even more staggering finds in the months and years ahead, all logically and accurately predicted by Evolution, but until now not always proven. As we continue the inexorable march to more factual realizations, and they all fit into the obvious Evolutionary explanation, and less to an implausible magic-based Genesis version, we'll finally see a global acceptance by all thinkers off the irrefutable facts of Evolution.
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*Note to doubters: All of this work is easily duplicated in your religion's science labs, since, as per science's rigid requirements, it's all well documented so as to be redone and ultimately peer-reviewed. I'd encourage such review, but so far.....
Guess what ...Sometimes the switch fails and doesn't get turned off...Quite a few people are born with tails, and the odd chicken is hatched with a set of chompers...
Guess what ...Sometimes the switch fails and doesn't get turned off...Quite a few people are born with tails, and the odd chicken is hatched with a set of chompers...
yep they are called mutations and are of no benefit to the individual-unless one can make a good living in a freak show
I thought it was because of an overgrowth of the spine. Do you have any info on the genetic studies for this?
By the way, yes, I do absolutely believe in evolution.
First read rifleman's post, then check the link he posted.
A gene is a unit of heredity that occupies a fixed position on a chromosome. A repressor is the mechanism (switch) that prevents these genes from activating...We all have many inherited genes that are turned off by repressors.
First read rifleman's post, then check the link he posted.
A gene is a unit of heredity that occupies a fixed position on a chromosome. A repressor is the mechanism (switch) that prevents these genes from activating...We all have many inherited genes that are turned off by repressors.
I must admit, Creationist-fundamentalists are quite imaginative and "creative" and particularly adept at thinking on their feet. The development of what might be labeled "Functional Adaptive Creationism Theory" (FACT...) seems to be coming along quite well. I expect to see it foisted off on, or baked into, the Intelligent Design presentation soon!
First we're admonished by some that "there's no such thing as functional mutations", or of the obviously resulting functional evolution, but instead it's all "just simple adaptation!". (Which, BTW, if it carries on to subsequent generations because it's recorded in the species' DNA, is also known as Evolution...)
But then, if the argument demands it, it's "just a mutation". Oh but then, we're also told that such mutations can never be positive or contributory to any improvements or species survivability (why not, one wonders aloud... Frankly, I identify this response as denialism, pure and simple, since of course there are all sorts of well-documented mutation-based improvements).
Repressed genes are clearly NOT a case of a mutation just happening along improbably. It's a previously-achieved and now DNA-documented and safely stored bit of alternate information, probably reflecting a transient need in the past for a different, not necessarily better, solution. But by dint of it's suitability and fit in potentially recurring ecological conditions (another ice age, or another planetary warming stage, or another bit of meteoric impact catastrophe...) it's put into cold storage.
All this is very well documented. In fact, researchers a few years back modified some Drosophila larvae (that ubiquitous and unlucky lab fruit fly) by removing whole segments of apparent junk DNA (which later turned out to contain some of these unused but fully functional segments and their repressors), and replacing them with simpler versions that didn't have all that repressed and unnecessary DNA baggage.
Guess what? The larvae matured into fully functional flies, with no disfunctionality. Despite removing major chunks of this species' God-given genetic code. Rather, the simplified fly genome represented what a Designer would have done if efficiency and design purity were a reasonable goal.
These repressor genes are also tied to other functionality "sets" within the overall genome, and are thus part of a systemic grouped reaction, thus keeping one species independent from another. You understand; so you don't get the tail but not the claws, or the feathers but no wings. It's clearly not genetic chaos inside the cell.
In addition, we hominids also carry repair segments which provide a "truthing and repair" sequence against which recently duplicated DNA is proofed. This minimizes the unintentional creation of permanent errors. This is also a sign of continued process evolution, a sort of Quality Control system only developed (evolved, actually...) in later species. Why not in all of them, right from the git-go, especially when He did it all in just a few days?? Did God say, after designing the first half-million species, "Oh rats! I forgot to add in that nifty integrated repair system! I must be getting forgetful! Oh well, can't go back now and just add it in..." (And why not? He is, after all, omnipotent...).
Strangely, God also limited such systemic advances only to the later species, those we know to have evolved from, not alongside, early ancestors. Hmmm... The Lord truly works in illogical, mysterious ways, yes?
There's also those troublesome older viral particles, long-since turned off to prevent their untimely expression. Since we know the rate at which errant mutations accumulate when a new species branches off on it's own, and we look at a comparable section of, say, chimp DNA versus H.erectus, we can clearly see that we moderns do indeed harbour some error-filled copies of those old viral particles from our primitive past. and the rate of error accumulation also, amazingly, coincides with our previously predicted evolutionary age. Again, positively amazing, huh?
At any rate, I repeat: this very recent find proves that some species genomes contain some very old but very functional alternative information that was "placed" there by early Evolutionary developments within an organism's ancestors. Call them functional mutations, call them "only mutations", call them pretty much anything you want.
Just so long as you know; that's Evolution for yah, folks!
It only happens because we still have the gene left over from when we ALL had tails.
i dont think that pic is even a tail-looks more like a bit of boneless skin-tails are like extansion's of spinal chords they have bone and that pic looks like its hanging on the cheek of the kids you know what
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The FACTS ma-am; just the FACTS!!
