- Organisms would often share body part designs and genetic sequences nearly identical to other organisms, even mostly unrelated organisms (convergent evolution) [highly verified]
- Even simpler organisms would contain useful but unused genes, if possible [partly verified]
- "Simple" organisms would be found with genes for more complex organisms [highly verified]
- Evolution would be able to proceed rapidly and in jumps, since new genes for complex traits could become expressed instantly [verified]
- Evolution would have been quite efficient in the past [verified]
- Evolution in general would remain fast, whereas expression of new genetic information (body part designs) would eventually end [partly verified]
- Formation of species would seem to slow down over time [verified]
- The complexity of cells generally would be great, and they would be highly efficient, containing some of the most efficient designs in nature [partly verified]
- It is reasonable that if animal life were to diversify rapidly at the start (Cambrian Explosion), then animals would initially have a sort-of grab-bag set of body features that would eventually decrease in diversity over time [verified]
- There would only be a few basic design types for basic features, like immune systems and sight and digestive tracts and blood cells, etc. [partly verified]
- Many genetic codes for cell types and functions within cells would be highly conserved across many diverse animals and plants [verified]
- Rigorous mechanisms would be built-in to preserve genetic information (since information can only be lost and not gained in this theory) [partly verified]
- An evolutionary pathway from inorganic life to basic cells would be impossible to find for the conditions of the early earth [jury is still out]
- Genetic mutation would almost always be a negative change to a species [partly verified]
- Efficient mechanisms would be built-in to allow for silencing or expression of genes per environmental variables [partly verified]
- Complex/efficient designs would be found in some of the earliest animals [verified]
- The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) cell type would have likely been quite complex rather than simpler [partly verified]
The information for complexity was created, not slowly brought into existence by trial and error through unguided evolution. According to observations, functional information is always created.
I challenge any reader to try to debunk this thesis or to show evidence that seems to contradict it.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to know, in point seven, what findings have verified that?
Thanks for this blog, it is fantastic!
Saskia
Thanks for your comment. It’s a good question. The belief of most evolutionists is, of course, that evolution can potentially proceed just as rapid today as ever. However, that is faith. Little in the way of evolution has been observed today. Several studies have been done to get fruit flies to evolve, and other animals, and they have failed to show any significant ability of them to evolve after many generations—say to temperature changes.
ReplyDeleteThe best info we have on macroevolution is in the fossil record. Here is a quote that I stole from another site that gives some info about the fossil record:
"In contrast with Bernal, Professor C.D. Darlington, Sheridan Professor of Botany at Oxford and one time directs of the John Innes Horticultural Institute, considers that evolution is slowing down. He points out that the primitive organisms known as prokaryotes evolved early and then settled down: they do not seem to have changed appreciably in the last billion years. Professor Grasse is another who thinks evolution is slowing down or even coming to a stop. So is Professor James Brough, Professor of Zoology at Cardiff University. He points out that no new phyla have emerged since the Cambrian age, 500 million years ago. Since then evolution has been restricted to working within about a dozen different patterns. Moreover, the emergence of new classes within phyla had ceased by the Lower Paleozoic, around 400 million years ago. When we descend to the next taxonomic category, the orders, we find that of forty-seven known fossil orders forty had evolved by that time; in the next fifty million years (the Devonian) only three more appeared; and in the the next 170 million (the whole Mesozoic) only four, since when none have. There has also been a marked slowing down, Brough holds. in the production of new families. 'As to the future,' he concludes ominously, 'evolution may go on waking in smaller and smaller fields until it ceases altogether.'
"These are fighting words of course, for the orthodox geneticist assumes that the rate of mutation stays constant unless it can be shown that some unusual environmental effect has increased it." —*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), pp. 80-81.
Of course, this pertains to the last 550 million years, mostly. For some 2.5 billion+ years life seems to have evolved little, though the fossil record before 600 million years is pretty sketchy. We really only have substantial fossil evidence after around 600 million years. In that time period, it appears that major evolution has slowed, as mentioned by the experts above.
Here are a few related and interesting notes about more recent evidence of evolution slowing:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080325083359.htm
http://www.uvm.edu/~jdavison/dpaper.html (interesting section, “Is evolution finished?”)
I’m sure there’s plenty more out there that could be linked to, but I hope this brief response provides a partial answer to your question.