atomsmasher Posted January 29, 2022 Report Posted January 29, 2022 (edited) Is natural selection the solution to evolution? I have been doing a review on how we and all the other creatures on this planet evolved and I have come to a surprising conclusion. The current accepted theory is natural selection. The originator of this theory was Charles Darwine. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) are jointly credited with coming up with the theory of evolution by natural selection, having co-published on it in 1858. Darwin has generally overshadowed Wallace since the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, however. Natural selection is a mechanism of evolution. Organisms that are more adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on the genes that aided their success. This process causes species to change and diverge over time. https://tinyurl.com/2p9cdbw8 natural selection, process that results in the adaptation of an organism to its environment by means of selectively reproducing changes in its genotype, or genetic constitution. https://www.britannica.com/science/natural-selection This theory is simple and easy to accept and even taught in our public schools and yet I believe it is flawed. The idea that humans evolved from monkeys to humans falls on it’s face when these very same monkeys are still swinging from the trees today. The only way to accept this theory is to believe a mutation occurred and this mutation evolved into the humans of today. To accept this defies the idea of “natural selection”. Setting aside natural selection and looking for alternatives I looked at the basic building blocks of all living things on this planet, DNA. What is DNA? DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA). Mitochondria are structures within cells that convert the energy from food into a form that cells can use. The information in DNA is stored as a code made up of four chemical bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people. The order, or sequence, of these bases determines the information available for building and maintaining an organism, similar to the way in which letters of the alphabet appear in a certain order to form words and sentences. DNA bases pair up with each other, A with T and C with G, to form units called base pairs. Each base is also attached to a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule. Together, a base, sugar, and phosphate are called a nucleotide. Nucleotides are arranged in two long strands that form a spiral called a double helix. The structure of the double helix is somewhat like a ladder, with the base pairs forming the ladder’s rungs and the sugar and phosphate molecules forming the vertical sidepieces of the ladder. An important property of DNA is that it can replicate, or make copies of itself. Each strand of DNA in the double helix can serve as a pattern for duplicating the sequence of bases. This is critical when cells divide because each new cell needs to have an exact copy of the DNA present in the old cell. To understand the above I had to accept the idea that such a structure developed from a planet that was nothing more that a large ball of molten rock that cooled down leaving a thin shell that is referred to as earth’s crust. From this crust DNA evolved. I find this hard to believe. Making it even harder to believe is the fact that DNA is just a small component from a much more complex structure called chromosomes. A chromosome is a DNA molecule packaged into thread-like structures. Each chromosome is made up of DNA tightly coiled many times around proteins called histones that support its structure. Chromosomes are not visible in the cell’s nucleus—not even under a microscope—when the cell is not dividing. However, the DNA that makes up chromosomes becomes more tightly packed during cell division and is then visible under a microscope. Most of what researchers know about chromosomes was learned by observing chromosomes during cell division. Each chromosome has a constriction point called the centromere, which divides the chromosome into two sections, or “arms.” The short arm of the chromosome is labeled the “p arm.” The long arm of the chromosome is labeled the “q arm.” The location of the centromere on each chromosome gives the chromosome its characteristic shape, and can be used to help describe the location of specific genes. https://tinyurl.com/2fwfscm7 How can a structure as complex as a chromosome come from the earths crust? This question puzzled me until I looked a little further. The above structure did not come about by natural selection but rather purposefully selection. Humans are doing this today, calling it cloning. Cloning is a technique scientists use to make exact genetic copies of living things. Genes, cells, tissues, and even whole animals can all be cloned. ... In humans, identical twins are similar to clones. They share almost the exact same genes. Identical twins are created when a fertilized egg splits in two. Scientists also make clones in the lab. They often clone genes in order to study and better understand them. To clone a gene, researchers take DNA from a living creature and insert it into a carrier like bacteria or yeast. Every time that carrier reproduces, a new copy of the gene is made. Animals are cloned in one of two ways. The first is alled embryo twinning. Scientists first split an embryo in half. Those two halves are then placed in a mother’s uterus. Each part of the embryo develops into a unique animal, and the two animals share the same genes. The second method is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. Somatic cells are all the cells that make up an organism, but that are not sperm or egg cells. Sperm and egg cells contain only one set of chromosomes, and when they join during fertilization, the mother’s chromosomes merge with the father’s. Somatic cells, on the other hand, already contain two full sets of chromosomes. To make a clone, scientists transfer the DNA from an animal’s somatic cell into an egg cell that has had its nucleus and DNA removed. The egg develops into an embryo that contains the same genes as the cell donor. Then the embryo is implanted into an adult female’s uterus to grow. In 1996, Scottish scientists cloned the first animal, a sheep they named Dolly. She was cloned using an udder cell taken from an adult sheep. Since then, scientists have cloned cows, cats, deer, horses, and rabbits. They still have not cloned a human, though. In part, this is because it is difficult to produce a viable clone. In each attempt, there can be genetic mistakes that prevent the clone from surviving. It took scientists 276 attempts to get Dolly right. There are also ethical concerns about cloning a human being. https://tinyurl.com/yckwwnph To cap this all off I have concluded that the human race will use cloning to remove our acceptability to diseases. Humans will eliminate the flaws that cause us to age and even “select” our size, improving our seeing, hearing, and thinking ability. We will clone ourselves into the perfect human being capable of exploring the universe around us. This all did not come from natural selection. I believe the components that evolved into what we are today was deliberate, our planet was seeded by outsiders who have been watching our development from afar. Someday, maybe sooner rather than later “they” will make themselves known and then we will join them exploring the infinite universe around us. That is unless we destroy ourselves first. (:- Edited January 29, 2022 by atomsmasher Quote
atomsmasher Posted January 29, 2022 Author Report Posted January 29, 2022 Unable to put the below into the above Quote
Vmedvil2 Posted February 3, 2022 Report Posted February 3, 2022 On 1/29/2022 at 11:44 AM, atomsmasher said: Is natural selection the solution to evolution? I have been doing a review on how we and all the other creatures on this planet evolved and I have come to a surprising conclusion. The current accepted theory is natural selection. The originator of this theory was Charles Darwine. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) are jointly credited with coming up with the theory of evolution by natural selection, having co-published on it in 1858. Darwin has generally overshadowed Wallace since the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, however. Natural selection is a mechanism of evolution. Organisms that are more adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on the genes that aided their success. This process causes species to change and diverge over time. https://tinyurl.com/2p9cdbw8 natural selection, process that results in the adaptation of an organism to its environment by means of selectively reproducing changes in its genotype, or genetic constitution. https://www.britannica.com/science/natural-selection This theory is simple and easy to accept and even taught in our public schools and yet I believe it is flawed. The idea that humans evolved from monkeys to humans falls on it’s face when these very same monkeys are still swinging from the trees today. The only way to accept this theory is to believe a mutation occurred and this mutation evolved into the humans of today. To accept this defies the idea of “natural selection”. Setting aside natural selection and looking for alternatives I looked at the basic building blocks of all living things on this planet, DNA. What is DNA? DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA). Mitochondria are structures within cells that convert the energy from food into a form that cells can use. The information in DNA is stored as a code made up of four chemical bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people. The order, or sequence, of these bases determines the information available for building and maintaining an organism, similar to the way in which letters of the alphabet appear in a certain order to form words and sentences. DNA bases pair up with each other, A with T and C with G, to form units called base pairs. Each base is also attached to a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule. Together, a base, sugar, and phosphate are called a nucleotide. Nucleotides are arranged in two long strands that form a spiral called a double helix. The structure of the double helix is somewhat like a ladder, with the base pairs forming the ladder’s rungs and the sugar and phosphate molecules forming the vertical sidepieces of the ladder. An important property of DNA is that it can replicate, or make copies of itself. Each strand of DNA in the double helix can serve as a pattern for duplicating the sequence of bases. This is critical when cells divide because each new cell needs to have an exact copy of the DNA present in the old cell. To understand the above I had to accept the idea that such a structure developed from a planet that was nothing more that a large ball of molten rock that cooled down leaving a thin shell that is referred to as earth’s crust. From this crust DNA evolved. I find this hard to believe. Making it even harder to believe is the fact that DNA is just a small component from a much more complex structure called chromosomes. A chromosome is a DNA molecule packaged into thread-like structures. Each chromosome is made up of DNA tightly coiled many times around proteins called histones that support its structure. Chromosomes are not visible in the cell’s nucleus—not even under a microscope—when the cell is not dividing. However, the DNA that makes up chromosomes becomes more tightly packed during cell division and is then visible under a microscope. Most of what researchers know about chromosomes was learned by observing chromosomes during cell division. Each chromosome has a constriction point called the centromere, which divides the chromosome into two sections, or “arms.” The short arm of the chromosome is labeled the “p arm.” The long arm of the chromosome is labeled the “q arm.” The location of the centromere on each chromosome gives the chromosome its characteristic shape, and can be used to help describe the location of specific genes. https://tinyurl.com/2fwfscm7 How can a structure as complex as a chromosome come from the earths crust? This question puzzled me until I looked a little further. The above structure did not come about by natural selection but rather purposefully selection. Humans are doing this today, calling it cloning. Cloning is a technique scientists use to make exact genetic copies of living things. Genes, cells, tissues, and even whole animals can all be cloned. ... In humans, identical twins are similar to clones. They share almost the exact same genes. Identical twins are created when a fertilized egg splits in two. Scientists also make clones in the lab. They often clone genes in order to study and better understand them. To clone a gene, researchers take DNA from a living creature and insert it into a carrier like bacteria or yeast. Every time that carrier reproduces, a new copy of the gene is made. Animals are cloned in one of two ways. The first is alled embryo twinning. Scientists first split an embryo in half. Those two halves are then placed in a mother’s uterus. Each part of the embryo develops into a unique animal, and the two animals share the same genes. The second method is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. Somatic cells are all the cells that make up an organism, but that are not sperm or egg cells. Sperm and egg cells contain only one set of chromosomes, and when they join during fertilization, the mother’s chromosomes merge with the father’s. Somatic cells, on the other hand, already contain two full sets of chromosomes. To make a clone, scientists transfer the DNA from an animal’s somatic cell into an egg cell that has had its nucleus and DNA removed. The egg develops into an embryo that contains the same genes as the cell donor. Then the embryo is implanted into an adult female’s uterus to grow. In 1996, Scottish scientists cloned the first animal, a sheep they named Dolly. She was cloned using an udder cell taken from an adult sheep. Since then, scientists have cloned cows, cats, deer, horses, and rabbits. They still have not cloned a human, though. In part, this is because it is difficult to produce a viable clone. In each attempt, there can be genetic mistakes that prevent the clone from surviving. It took scientists 276 attempts to get Dolly right. There are also ethical concerns about cloning a human being. https://tinyurl.com/yckwwnph To cap this all off I have concluded that the human race will use cloning to remove our acceptability to diseases. Humans will eliminate the flaws that cause us to age and even “select” our size, improving our seeing, hearing, and thinking ability. We will clone ourselves into the perfect human being capable of exploring the universe around us. This all did not come from natural selection. I believe the components that evolved into what we are today was deliberate, our planet was seeded by outsiders who have been watching our development from afar. Someday, maybe sooner rather than later “they” will make themselves known and then we will join them exploring the infinite universe around us. That is unless we destroy ourselves first. (:- I am not going to go into what is wrong with the statements you have said but I will say "No, you are just wrong". You have a very basic understanding of the systems you are talking about however I can instantly tell you have zero technical expertise in the area and from someone that does understand how all that works you possess the expertise of a college freshman in biology or maybe senior in high school. Quote
atomsmasher Posted February 4, 2022 Author Report Posted February 4, 2022 On 2/2/2022 at 7:16 PM, Vmedvil2 said: You have a very basic understanding of the systems you are talking about however I can instantly tell you have zero technical expertise in the area and from someone that does understand how all that works you possess the expertise of a college freshman in biology or maybe senior in high school. I must say you have done a really good job of dodging my question. Living creatures on this planet are extremely complex. Natural selection can not account for this complexity. Still, I admit that my statement leaves little room for a discussion. I think aliens planted the seed of life on this planet. You believe that life is a result of natural selection. The truth is the two can exist together resulting in the same outcome. Nevertheless, it leaves little room for a debate so in retrospect I should not have said this. You win, I loose, off to another debatable discussion. Quote
Vmedvil2 Posted February 4, 2022 Report Posted February 4, 2022 (edited) 3 hours ago, atomsmasher said: I must say you have done a really good job of dodging my question. Living creatures on this planet are extremely complex. Natural selection can not account for this complexity. Still, I admit that my statement leaves little room for a discussion. I think aliens planted the seed of life on this planet. You believe that life is a result of natural selection. The truth is the two can exist together resulting in the same outcome. Nevertheless, it leaves little room for a debate so in retrospect I should not have said this. You win, I loose, off to another debatable discussion. Its not that, many of the statements you have said are true but the idea that natural selection is flawed is completely the wrong conclusion as we know for a fact it happens. You used a very silly argument that we didn't evolve from monkeys something that creationists have been saying for 50 years and it's been disproven time and time again. "If evolution is real why are there still monkeys? ... Firstly, humans did not evolve from monkeys. Instead, monkeys and humans share a common ancestor from which both evolved around 25 million years ago. This evolutionary relationship is supported both by the fossil record and DNA analysis." Link = https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/10/04/3331957.htm Like I agree with the conclusion that we will use Genetic Engineering and Cloning technologies to improve the species which was your final idea, Link = https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/china-has-done-human-testing-create-biologically-enhanced-super-soldiers-n1249914 and https://www.the-sun.com/news/926769/super-soldier-arms-race-genetically-modified-killing-machine/ Edited February 4, 2022 by Vmedvil2 OceanBreeze 1 Quote
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