The simple truth is that biologists don't yet really know what to make of it.

the way I see it after reading that is that its only another confirmation of what you have been stating, the fact that something smells bad if any new discovery about evolution "extends" the darwinian model. I wonder if the same weasel maneovre could be used to modify the constitution, explain global warming etc...

Despite the Darwinists trying to downplay this finding, if it's true (and I have no reason to believe that it isn't), it's likely the coup de grâce for Darwinism. The straw that broke the pseudoscience's back so to speak. lol

If you do a Google search around the web, you'll see this paper is getting a mixed reaction. Some love it, many more are getting their panties in a bunch over it. In fact, quite a few are outright rejecting it for no reason other than the fact that they realize what a major blow this is to their Victorian era ideology (but the finches beaks changed shape and size! *sob*).

What the author is describing here, Control Theory, is a well known engineering process that dates back centuries. I repeat, an ENGINEERING PROCESS. As in *gasp* INTELLIGENT DESIGN! Now you all understand why the Blind-Watchmaker Evolutionists are so eager to dismiss this article - it's pretty much the end of the great debate between Darwinism and Intelligent Design, with I.D. being the clear victor.

I look forward to any follow-ups on this article. Really interesting stuff. The more we learn, the stronger the case for I.D. becomes and the more Darwinism looks like a fairytale. That should throw up a huge red-flag that I.D. is most likely the correct position.


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Darwinism - ideas based on what we didn't know in the 19th century

Intelligent Design - ideas based on what we do know in the 21st century

As has been already stated, this is not a huge deal. Science reporting in the media routinely blows new papers all out of proportion. For Darwinists, if the hypothesized mechanism exists then it cannot have created itself, therefore the Darwinian mechanism must be responsible for its creation. For ID theorists, it's yet another system within biology that looks like an engineer tinkered with it. It's not like there weren't tons of systems like that we already knew about.

We already know about mechanisms which correct genetic mistakes, like the biochemical mechanism that corrects mutations caused specifically by UV radiation. This mechanism appears to be quite a bit different because the authors are speculating that it acts globally, rather than specifically, and they are directly applying engineering principles to make a prediction. But this is a hypothesis paper similar to the dark matter and dark energy hypotheses, which are based on equations that would be unbalanced without them. If the mechanism is elucidated, if would be a big deal because it would confirm the authors' control theory hypothesis and confirm an ID prediction, but I doubt it would seriously affect either ID or Darwinism. If it's found, as shaqbark noted, that it's simply random mutation and natural selection in action, then it would be another one of those rare examples where Darwinism can actually be demonstrated instead of imagined, like sickle cell anemia.

It's a little deal scott. Evolution, the blind watch-maker just made up a feedback mechanism in a blind fashion that turns out to be better/faster at evolving, that is all. No biggie.

Another control circuit with more/less feedback can go faster/slower in evolution. Such competing circuits themselves evolve, at another level, no big deal again. It's certainly a little deal.

Two lines from the linked article jump out to me.

"The Princeton group, ..., haven't proven that intelligent design is a valid scientific theory."

No, that would be heresy and closed minded.

And

"They discovered that the proteins were correcting any imbalance imposed on them through artificial mutations, constantly restoring the chain to working order."

Seems to argue against macro evolution if the organisms are self correcting and resistant to large mutations. But, since they were looking FOR evidence supporting evolution, they drew a contrary conclusion. When you throw out randomness, it seems like the only thing left is intelligent design.

I'm sorry, I'm being closed minded aren't I.

Scott, be careful, a 'computer' program guiding evolution smacks of intelligent design also. You might be labeled a nut or worst.

I should explain my last comment more.

The authors found that "redox potential" (just black-box that term and pretend we know what it means) of one protein was maximized in 2 organisms, and minimized in 2 other organisms.

They then reasoned:
We don't know how redox potential affects the efficiency of ATP generation.
Therefore, we know that redox potential doesn't affect ATP generation. (That's the crucial leap-of-illogic.)
Therefore, the fact that this is minimized in 2 organisms, and maximized in 2 other organisms, may be because there is a general mechanism that has evolved that tries to set all properties of a protein at either a maximum or at a minimum, regardless of whether those properties are important.

The paper is available online: Physical Review Letters 100, 258103, 27 June 2008. But, of course, you need to pay for it.

An article on evolution, by chemists, in a physics journal.

The authors are trying to explain this puzzle: They looked at cytochrome oxidiase c' in 4 different species. In two of them, the active heme site had a very low redox potential, compared to the possible range found in 4-residue mutants. In the other two, it had a very high redox potential.

They then had 2 possible explanations:

1. For some reason we don't yet know, a low redox potential for this protein is good in two of these species, but bad in the other two.

2. There is a magical force animating evolution, and this one study of one protein in 4 species overturns everything everybody thought they had learned about evolution over the past 150 years.

They chose the second.

This will be a big deal if it turns out to be true, but based on the article, the authors don't seem to know the first thing about evolution. The whole thing is very dubious. They talk about data 'jumping off the page' but they don't say what data or how it was analysed. There are several sentences that contradict themselves in multiple ways.

Unfortunately, the original paper isn't available on line yet, so I can't check it out properly. But from what I've read so far, it doesn't ring true.

Ok Scott, you have GOT to read The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html



...
It's true what they say about great minds thinking alike I guess.

Regarding the geometry of the universe, what happens at the equator? No, the other one; a torus has two.

I guess it's too late to remove the part that makes this evolution create lolcats? Maybe next time.

A couple of other people mentioned Greg Bear's book, "Darwin's Radio", which has a premise along the lines of this research. That book was published in 1999 and I would guess that the idea wasn't all that new then. Nevertheless it is interesting to see some scientific progress into actual mechanisms by which the process of evolution works.
-HAL

>>And since the universe is deterministic, it happens the same way every time

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought it was fairly generally accepted that the universe is infinite. Infinity has no definite value and is therefore indeterminite. Are you proposing that the appearance of a shape of the universe also dictates that it must have a finite size?

I think your first, completely inexplicable, misconception is about where the research was done: "Stanford."

The very URL to the article points at that it was Princeton, not Stanford:
http://io9.com/5083673/princeton-scientists-discover-proteins-that-control-evolution


Oh well. I guess it was just that mind-blowing... or maybe some hidden Bay Area bias?

No deal.
They discovered nothing special, but tried to hype it a lot with loaded words.

In practice: "Proteins evolved to favor faster evolution".
Nothing new under the sun.

Have a look at the comments on Slashdot:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/12/2323245

Anyone who has ever been interviewed by the press knows they usually get everything wrong. Once I was interviewed, and I said that most Mathematicians, after finishing their degree go on to get a Masters. Then I was asked if I'd do the same, I said yes. In the interview it said that my "dream" is to get a Master's Degree in math.

I'm betting the reporter got it wrong.

The opinion of someone who knows about evolution

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/11/prediction_selfpromoting_hype.php

If I remember correctly Scott did a series of strips where Bob tried to use his force of will to evolve a pimple into a third eye so he could have an evolutionary advantage. While not exactly what they mean, I still thought of that as soon as I read the article.