Oldest vertebrate fossil found in Australia, scientists say

My calculation implies that the probability of the evolution of humans without 2ndl is less than a moogolth.

I have not postulated the nature of this 2ndI.

I will not postulate it until I have some science to back up such a postulation.

I'll be delighted to brainstorm guesses about what 2ndI is. However, until my last breath I shall resist guessing or discussing whether it is devine or not.

Here's a brain storming seed. We know that organic molecules as well as inorganic molecules were formed more than 3 billion years ago. What is it about organic molecules that make them more suitable for the construction of living organisms? What is it about even the simplest living organisms that influences their self-replication?

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Hi Ican,

ican711nm wrote:

My calculation implies that the probability of the evolution of humans without 2ndl is less than a moogolth.

We're back to the original point:

Your calculation is irrelevant because it is based on the probability of a *particular* genome occuring (as a target) from the beginning.

You are using the calculation to *deduce* that a targetted system is indicated, but you are also *assuming* that a targetted system exists as part of the calculation itself. You can't do this.

The calculation would be more relevant if you could calculate that the probability of *any* genome of this complexity (but then then you must define complexity) was less than a moogolth. A calculation of this type might be interesting. Smile

Best Regards,

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My intention is not to present a hypothesis, but to try to illustrate that there may be mechanisms that we have no way of foreseeing, but that, once discovered, will be perfectly reasonable. You're taking the leap of saying that we may not be able to account for what's going on so there must be some outside influence at work. You continue to cite the history of science to support your argument, but the history of science has been moving away from the notion that the day-to-day physical universe is under some outside influence, not toward it. Believe me, I'm not a doctrinaire, I just don't see how anything you've presented casts any light on the subject or how there is any support for your hypothesis of an outside influence.

-- I wonder how one would calculate the negative change in entropy necessary for the creation of all the earth's biomolecules? --

This at least is somewhat answerable:

Quote:

We know that organic molecules as well as inorganic molecules were formed more than 3 billion years ago. What is it about organic molecules that make them more suitable for the construction of living organisms?

Carbon is an extremely versatile element. It is the only element capable forming long, stable chains, and its electronegativity allow it to form strong covalent bonds with a variety of more reactive molecules. Electronegativity is key: the more an element is able to share electron orbitals with carbon, the more abundant it is in living systems. The unique properties of water are pretty big, too -- and the nearly identical electronegativity of hydrogen and carbon and the stability of the C-O and C=O bonds probably helped select carbon, too. C=O is probably the most important functional group in organic and biochemistry by virtue of its ability to support both positive and negative charges on its own or on a neighboring carbon.

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hey dog, Id like to put in a voye for a Silicon based universal lifeform.

Ican -mutation occurs at the transcription of a nucleotide, not a gene. The gene is affected , but lets be accurate.

A codon is just a triplet pair of nucleotides that form an amino acid, they arent coding points necessarily

The common ancestor of a placental mammal is eomia at 150 my. All the genetic similarities of the common ancestor of man and mouse are where the divergence begins. All features for successful divergence were already in place at the time of eomia. The gene code, as Gould states, was just a bookkeeping system of the trip through time, not the causation. It occured to me that , besides being circular, your calculations do focus on divergent genomes not similarities. Again, and you keep missing this. Once a feature is coded, such as legs, its own genetic diversity is enough to control macroevolution.

We use Fano factors which are basically, a numerical model which, briefly is the ratio of variance between species to the mean number of nucleotide substitutions. This favors punctuated equilibrium so, Im a little concerned

Your fixation on mutation alone is a big problem. Many scientists including Palumbi feel that the huge genetic diversity between individuals is enough to account for macro level changes . Between 2 individuals there can be millions of differences expressed in the diversity of traits. Thus the average range for the entire population can be huge (as long as the total number of proteins is about 120000) thats the rough max number that can be created by 4 base pairs and about 24 amino acids.

Darwinian dynamics are coming back in favor by recognition of sympatric speciation as well as natural selection and isolation. Also genetic drift along with natural selection is a fast track speciation measurement.

I have to join the group to urge you to get a firmer grounding in the basic subject science and stop with the "I surmise becauase the calculation Ive put together proves Im correct" Its circular and you, as an engineer should recognize that. Otherwise , your own position comes right out of Behes book "Darwins Black Box" and you know it does.

You havent established on jot of validity for your variables. Yet you say that youve considered dimensionality. I disagree strongly. LAy out your full equation in a dimensional such as TRD , or Fma, I cant even see Darcys law here.

Mayres quote re extinction events are his quotes from Gene Shoemakers work. However we always talk of the BIG 5, which are the extinctions that killed off more than 70% of species and at least 20% of higher taxa. There are really about 20 total extinction events that come out of the Blatt and Berry text on Strat analyses(I told you of this text last year)

I believe that, your consistency is an attempt to quantiitate and thus verify a philosophical belief. Im not saying that theres anything deeper but , you could easily learn about evolution rates and evidence and cladistics and DNA and chromosomal inversion and other non mutational mechanisms of evolution. These are just as frequent and , like a Linux platform on a computer, dont require as many steps to operate as opposed to mutational expression.

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Quote:

non mutational mechanisms of evolution

This is what I've been trying to get at in my long-winded, don't-know-the-specifics-yet, excitable way.

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ican711nm wrote:

My calculation implies that the probability of the evolution of humans without 2ndl is less than a moogolth.

I apologize for my sloppy wording. To properly reflect the formula I used, I should have said what I have repeatedly written in this forum:

ican711nm wrote:

My calculation implies that the probability of the evolution of human-like intelligence without 2ndl is less than a moogolth.

You decide what human-like intelligence is. I indirectly define human-like intelligence as follow:

P = M x I / S,
where P = probability of the evolution of human-like intelligence without 2ndl.

M = the total number of edits of procreating genomes of all kinds, including mutation edits, within the last one billion years.

I = the total number of genome sequences that could specify human-like intelligence.

S = the total number of possible sequences of codons among 300 genes.

S is computable to be a number greater than 10^4,876,685. Let's round it down to 4,800,000.

M is computable to be less than 10^100. Let's round M up to 10^1,900,000.

I estimated I to be 10^100. Let's also round I up to 10^1,900,000.

THEN

P = M x I / S = 10^1,900,000 x 10^1,900,000 / 10^4,800,000 =

10^3,800,000 / 10^4,800,000 = 10^(-1,000,000) = a moogolth.

My calculation is relevant. I am not using my calculation

Quote:

to compute the probability of a *particular* genome occuring (as a target) from the beginning.
Quote:

The rest of what you posted is not correct for the same reason.

Again, I apologize for my sloppy wording.

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patiodog wrote:

My intention is not to present a hypothesis, but to try to illustrate that there may be mechanisms that we have no way of foreseeing, but that, once discovered, will be perfectly reasonable.

Me too!

patiodog wrote:

You're taking the leap of saying that we may not be able to account for what's going on so there must be some outside influence at work.

I am not doing anything of the kind. I am hypothesizing an inside influence not yet dicovered.

2ndI is NOT perceived by me to be an outside influence. I even speculated that it may be related to the nature of organic chemicals -- they're pretty inside, aren't they? And, yes, almost all are composed of carbon.

patiodog wrote:

Carbon is an extremely versatile element. It is the only element capable forming long, stable chains, and its electronegativity allow it to form strong covalent bonds with a variety of more reactive molecules. Electronegativity is key: the more an element is able to share electron orbitals with carbon, the more abundant it is in living systems. The unique properties of water are pretty big, too -- and the nearly identical electronegativity of hydrogen and carbon and the stability of the C-O and C=O bonds probably helped select carbon, too. C=O is probably the most important functional group in organic and biochemistry by virtue of its ability to support both positive and negative charges on its own or on a neighboring carbon.

I agree!

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But every possible sequence does not have to be sampled, nor is there any one sequence that will result in intelligent life. A new gene doesn't have to -- indeed, is not likely to -- come from a random sequence. If you look at the field of enzymology a bit, you will find that a number of sequences are very similar or identical in a number of different biological products: these are called domains. There are domains that have been charted for transmembrane proteins, for active sites for various types of reactions, etc., etc. That we differ by 300 genes from another animal does not mean that all of these genes had to evolve do novo; it means that existing sequences have been rearranged to produce different biological products. What's coming to light as more genomes get mapped and as the field of proteomics gets under way is that there is a greater variety of biological products than we imagined and a lesser variety in terms of how those products are coded.

Sorry that I keep coming back to enzymes, but it's where I'm most comfortable -- and it's where the action of a cell happens. Random mutaions in homologous genes is a useful tool for determining how far back they separate on the family shrub, but it's not necessarily what drives evolution. When a palindrome is created in the genome, a dozen or more base pairs can be changed at once. When the genes for a globin end up in different places and drift just a little bit, you end up with myoglobin and the different subunits of hemoglobin. Now, if you just count these three different biological products -- myoglobin and the alpha and beta subunits of hemoglobin -- without taking into account how closely related they are, you have to account for the emergence of a particular sequence of over 1300 base pairs. But the fact of it is that these are really only three sets of ~450 base pairs, all of which evolved from a single source, and all of which can show some considerable degree of variability without resulting in a different amino acid sequence. In other words, there didn't have to be a magical precise arrangement of 1300 nucleotides to get to myoglobin and hemoglobin, so what initially appears to be very complex is simplified by recognizing some basic underlying principles. There are countless (no, not literally countless) examples of such homologies, and they are put to great use in understanding, treating, and designing drugs against disease.

Cheers.

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farmerman wrote:

Ican -mutation occurs at the transcription of a nucleotide, not a gene. The gene is affected , but lets be accurate.

GRRRRR
Do you really think I don't know this?

farmerman wrote:

A codon is just a triplet pair of nucleotides that form an amino acid, they arent coding points necessarily

GRRRRR
Do you really think I don't know this?

farmerman wrote:

The common ancestor of a placental mammal is eomia at 150 my. All the genetic similarities of the common ancestor of man and mouse are where the divergence begins. All features for successful divergence were already in place at the time of eomia. The gene code, as Gould states, was just a bookkeeping system of the trip through time, not the causation. It occured to me that , besides being circular, your calculations do focus on divergent genomes not similarities. Again, and you keep missing this. Once a feature is coded, such as legs, its own genetic diversity is enough to control macroevolution.

We use Fano factors which are basically, a numerical model which, briefly is the ratio of variance between species to the mean number of nucleotide substitutions. This favors punctuated equilibrium so, Im a little concerned

Yes I know. Rolling Eyes

farmerman wrote:

Your fixation on mutation alone is a big problem.

GRRRRR
Whose fixation on mutation alone? Surely you don't mean me Shocked

I have repeatedly written about the editing of procreatable genomes. I recognize and have repeately identified mutation as only one way, possibly a minor way, to edit genomes.

farmerman wrote:

Many scientists including Palumbi feel that the huge genetic diversity between individuals is enough to account for macro level changes . Between 2 individuals there can be millions of differences expressed in the diversity of traits. Thus the average range for the entire population can be huge (as long as the total number of proteins is about 120000) thats the rough max number that can be created by 4 base pairs and about 24 amino acids.

Actually 4 different base pairs taken three at a time = 4^3 = 64. Many of my references have alleged only 20 different amino acids in hominids. 24 is better, I like 24.

farmerman wrote:

Darwinian dynamics are coming back in favor by recognition of sympatric speciation as well as natural selection and isolation. Also genetic drift along with natural selection is a fast track speciation measurement.

I have to join the group to urge you to get a firmer grounding in the basic subject science and stop with the "I surmise becauase the calculation Ive put together proves Im correct" Its circular and you, as an engineer should recognize that. Otherwise , your own position comes right out of Behes book "Darwins Black Box" and you know it does.

You havent established on jot of validity for your variables. Yet you say that youve considered dimensionality. I disagree strongly. LAy out your full equation in a dimensional such as TRD , or Fma, I cant even see Darcys law here.

Mayres quote re extinction events are his quotes from Gene Shoemakers work. However we always talk of the BIG 5, which are the extinctions that killed off more than 70% of species and at least 20% of higher taxa. There are really about 20 total extinction events that come out of the Blatt and Berry text on Strat analyses(I told you of this text last year)

I believe that, your consistency is an attempt to quantiitate and thus verify a philosophical belief. Im not saying that theres anything deeper but , you could easily learn about evolution rates and evidence and cladistics and DNA and chromosomal inversion and other non mutational mechanisms of evolution. These are just as frequent and , like a Linux platform on a computer, dont require as many steps to operate as opposed to mutational expression.

All this is relevant knowledge for a different discussion: a discussion about the nature of 2ndI.

I'm ready to get to it when you are.

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Quote:

Many of my references have alleged only 20 different amino acids in hominids.

20 are synthesized as free amino acids -- not just in hominids, but in all eukaryotes. A couple more that appear in proteins are derivatives of a couple of the original 20, and are changed in the ER and the Golgi.

Quote:

I am not doing anything of the kind. I am hypothesizing an inside influence not yet dicovered.

Huh. That's not what I've gathered, not at all. Ah, well. I suppose I read poorly, since this is all I've been trying to get to...

Quote:

My intention is not to present a hypothesis, but to try to illustrate that there may be mechanisms that we have no way of foreseeing, but that, once discovered, will be perfectly reasonable.

But why must there be a push toward greater complexity? Plenty of organisms have evolved by reduction, just as pleny of organisms have evolved toward greater complexity.

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Ican,

ican711nm wrote:

P = M x I / S = 10^1,900,000 x 10^1,900,000 / 10^4,800,000 =

10^3,800,000 / 10^4,800,000 = 10^(-1,000,000) = a moogolth.

Given the size of the numbers you are working with, the fact that we are *only* off by a single moogolth, is quite comforting as support for human-like intelligence being almost inevitable in standard evolution even without the 2ndI component. Smile

I'm sorry Ican, but for me at least, your base equations, as well as all the factors contained therein, are unconvincing without some demonstrated basis in reality.

If you want to move on to speculation as to what 2ndI might be, assuming that it exists at all, then I'll be glad to play along.

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Sorry ican if Ive offended you , but you know, you had a habit in this thread of emphasizing some rookie material for patiodog and others.
I just want to make sure that the point isnt lost that you dont differ one jot from Behe in his unashamedly Intelligent Design (Creationist) view of evolution. his book has been soundly critiqued by a number of academics and others to the point that the ID crowd rarely uses his material anymore.

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patiodog wrote:

But why must there be a push toward greater complexity? Plenty of organisms have evolved by reduction, just as pleny of organisms have evolved toward greater complexity.

I'm interested in the ones that have evolved toward greater complexity despite a multitude of extinctions.

Extinctions immediately constitute a degree of reduction, which have often been followed by resumption of evolution toward complexity, or, more specifically toward increasingly intelligent brains.

While natural selection "prunes the bush" of evolution it does not of itself generate new "limbs".

My hypothesis is that a natural and not devine 2ndI is necessary for the evolution process to have produced within a billion years that part of evolution we witness that is toward increasingly intelligent brains.

The validity of my hypothesis of the probable necessity of 2ndI does not depend on the truth or falsity of any theory or theories regarding how procreating genomes got edited. Whether they were edited by a few extremely complex, multi-base, multi-codon, multi-gene, multi-chromosome, or even multi-genome edits all at one time, or over a long period of time, or they consisted of only one base edit at a time over the entire BA to H evolution, is actually irrelevant to the validity of my calculation of an upper bound of the probability that 2ndI is not necessary. That's because the nature and size of the edits, however they occurred, and in whatever intervals of time they occurred, are simply not a relevant factor. All that is relevant is the total number of edits that did occur, ocurred within a one billion year period.

However, it's my guess that the validity of any hypothesis regarding the actual nature of 2ndI is dependent on how those edits actually did occur.

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rosborne979 wrote:

If you want to move on to speculation as to what 2ndI might be, assuming that it exists at all, then I'll be glad to play along.

Great, then let's play.

Is 2ndI intrinsic in organic molecules?

Is there something about carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, or hydrogen elements that provides a clue?

Am I correct? Evolution didn't really, at least in part, proceed toward greater intelligence, until the density of oxygen in earth's atmosphere reached a certain level.

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farmerman wrote:

I just want to make sure that the point isnt lost that you dont differ one jot from Behe in his unashamedly Intelligent Design (Creationist) view of evolution.

I have never read Behe or any of the other self-proclaimed creationists. I will not read him or them. Yes, it is possible that devine intervention inspired evolution. Yes, its possible that it didn't. My philosophical position is that the universe is finite in space, time, matter and energy, and is all there is, was, and ever will be. Can I prove it? Of course not. Can I show it more probable than other models? Again, of course not! But I have been, I am, and I shall continue to bet my life that it's true.

If it is actually true that I don't differ from Behe by so much as one jot, I don't give a damn. I am responsible for me, not Behe. No one of us, not you either, is safe from outrageous accusations based on alleged similarites between oneself and some despicable other person.

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Quote:

Extinctions immediately constitute a degree of reduction, which have often been followed by resumption of evolution toward complexity, or, more specifically toward increasingly intelligent brains.

Extinctions do NOT cause reduction in the species that survive. In fact, they open up a variety of niches that were previously unavailable to them.

Quote:

While natural selection "prunes the bush" of evolution it does not of itself generate new "limbs".

In other words, you are dead wrong that natural selection does not create new branches. The distinction is that natural selection does not actively create new branches. It can, in fact, be responsible for an increase in genetic diversity -- by selecting against individuals who are heterozygous for a certain trait, for instance.

Let's take your botany analogy a bit further: limbs generally branch dichotomously, which means that there is no differentiation between either branch, simply that the dividing cells move apart in two directions. (This is how you distinguish a true complex leaf from a branch, by the way: there is a leaf bud at the base of the leaf, indicating that there has been a change in the tissues at that point. No leaf bud, no differentiation in tissues. But that is tangential trivia.)

There are a couple of basic models for how natural selection exerts its influence. There is always a certain amount of allelic (if that's the right word) diversity among a population. Some pressures act against the "freaks" -- the once that display the greatest deviation from the norm in their expression of a certain trait. Others, however, act on the norm, while the two sets of freaks (thinking in terms of the expression of a homozygous dominant trait here). If there is sufficient separation -- behaviorally, biochemically, or geographically -- between the surviving sub-populations, they can, in fact, speciate. This is seen in a number of insect populations on islands in the Pacific, where different species have evolved by developing different behaviors around reproduction. Once the species are separated -- whatever that separation is -- genetic drift occurs and they become more distinct. But the initial pressure is, in fact, natural selection.

In other words, you are dead wrong that natural selection does not create new branches.

Would you like another illustration of this?

California has distinct mule deer populations, clearly descended from a common ancestor and still capable of producing fertile offspring. One population inhabits the mountains and is characterized be a particular gait that is genetically determined. Another population inhabits the lower foothills and has a different gait, also determinant. Recently, development throughout the region has put these populations in contact with one another. The problem with this is that the offspring of their matings have neither the gate of the lowland population nor the gait of the mountain population. What they have is a clumsy (for a deer, anyway) method of walking that is ill-adapted to either development. If you re-introduce the natural selective pressures in the area -- that is, get rid of the lawns and the gardens so that they have nothing to eat during the winter and allow the mountain lions to return to their levels of a century or two ago -- those clumsy offspring will have a very low probability of passing their genes on to their ancestors even when such chance trans-population matings did occur. Without human interference (the native American populations in the region were very sparse and certainly not builders of highways or tract housing), these two populations would have remained separated by their behavioral differences and continued their genetic drift.

Quote:

My hypothesis is that a natural and not devine 2ndI is necessary for the evolution process to have produced within a billion years that part of evolution we witness that is toward increasingly intelligent brains.

So "2ndI" can be something as simple as the increased ability of more "intelligent" (I'll take this as meaning behaviorally flexible, since I've yet to see this adequately defined) to occupy niches vacated as other species become extinct -- such as baseball teams aspiring to be the next dynasty after the mighty Yankees die out in a salary-restricted baseball world. That would hardly be a revolutionary idea.

Quote:

Am I correct? Evolution didn't really, at least in part, proceed toward greater intelligence, until the density of oxygen in earth's atmosphere reached a certain level.

Respiration is far more efficient than fermentation, and, since the name of the game in evolution is efficient exploitation of available resources, oxygen would indeed have spurred a great diversification of life on this planet. However, the likelihood that there was sufficient oxygen as a result of unicellular photoautotrophs to evolve oxidative metabolism before the advent of multicellular organisms (allowing for the presence of colonies of relatively undifferentiated cells, as in the alga) is pretty high. The free energy change associated with lactic acid fermentation is -198 kJ/mol. The change associated with the complete oxidation of glucose to carbon dioxide is -2833 kJ/mol. (Sulfur metabolism is another story altogether, but it obviously hasn't been a major evolutionary success story of late.)

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ican711nm wrote:

Is 2ndI intrinsic in organic molecules?

Or more to the point; is 2ndI intrinsic to the nature of the universe. After all, we could argue that it isn't just life which is evolving, but also the Universe itself. For example, the Universe started out with simple elements (Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium), but now, thanks to Stars, we have heavy elements (which are produced as Stars go through their nuclear life cycle). And those heavy elements form molecules, which form compounds which form [among other things], life.

ican711nm wrote:

Am I correct? Evolution didn't really, at least in part, proceed toward greater intelligence, until the density of oxygen in earth's atmosphere reached a certain level.

A vast majority of the evolutionary timeline was spent evolving single cells. It's likely that the most complex and difficult part of making life work occurs at the cellular or mollecular level. The idea that a human is any more complex than a mouse or a falcon or even a redwood isn't necessarily correct, and even if it is, the differences between these things are only a tiny fraction of the overall pool of genetic possibility.

Just because cells are small doesn't mean they aren't complex. Our own complexity derives mostly from assemblages of cells, and only partly from our own unique way of having them assembled.

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And to add to that -- morphology is inherently limited in terms of the ways in which a cell can divide. So far as I've seen, a trifurcation is extremely rare -- the only example I know of is in a plant ovule (or is it in the seed?).

But I haven't taken development yet, so I haven't seen much detail on this subject.

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patiodog wrote:

Extinctions do NOT cause reduction in the species that survive. In fact, they open up a variety of niches that were previously unavailable to them.

This is correct, and a very important point. Environmrntal change, including the extinction of species (which opens up niches for remaining creatures), seems to be a major factor speeding evolution.

patiodog wrote:

Ican711nm wrote:
While natural selection "prunes the bush" of evolution it does not of itself generate new "limbs".

In other words, you are dead wrong that natural selection does not create new branches. The distinction is that natural selection does not actively create new branches. It can, in fact, be responsible for an increase in genetic diversity -- by selecting against individuals who are heterozygous for a certain trait, for instance.

Yes. Another good point.

patiodog wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
My hypothesis is that a natural and not devine 2ndI is necessary for the evolution process to have produced within a billion years that part of evolution we witness that is toward increasingly intelligent brains.

So "2ndI" can be something as simple as the increased ability of more "intelligent" (I'll take this as meaning behaviorally flexible, since I've yet to see this adequately defined) to occupy niches vacated as other species become extinct -- such as baseball teams aspiring to be the next dynasty after the mighty Yankees die out in a salary-restricted baseball world. That would hardly be a revolutionary idea.

Correct. It would not be revolutionary, it would be Natural Selection. Smile

Interesting info in that last post PatioDog. Thanks Smile

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Another interesting thing to consider is the affect of symbiosis on Evolution. Just as cells of a related genetic line can specialize to build an organism, cells of a different genetic line can incorporate into the organism to produce a new possibility, which then affects selection.

The best example of this is Mitochondria, which are entirely unique genetic organisms, unrelated to us (the human genome).

These organisms became symbiots with early cells long before life emerged from the sea. Without this symbiosis, animal life as we know it would not exist. Plants went through a similar symbiotic alignment to accomplish photosynthesis, but where we animals got a mitochondria, the plants got a chlorlplast to work with.

The result was a dramatic divergence in two primay kingdoms of life.

http://dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu/~pgore/students/w96/joshbond/symb.htm

Could symbiosis be the 2ndI? Or is symbiosis the result of 2ndI?

And how many 2ndI's could there be?

Smile

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Oldest vertebrate fossil found in Australia, scientists say

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