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An international team of scientists has discovered the greatest absence of evolution ever reported—a type of deep-sea microorganism that appears not to have evolved over more than 2 billion years. But the researchers say that the organisms' lack of evolution actually supports Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The findings are published online today by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists examined sulfur bacteria, microorganisms that are too small to see with the unaided eye, that are 1.8 billion years old and were preserved in rocks from Western Australia's coastal waters. Using cutting-edge technology, they found that the bacteria look the same as bacteria of the same region from 2.3 billion years ago—and that both sets of ancient bacteria are indistinguishable from modern sulfur bacteria found in mud off of the coast of Chile.
http://phys.org/news/2015-02-scientists-hasnt-evolved-billion-years.html
[Abstract]: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/27/1419241112
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 03 2015, @05:07PM
"the researchers say that the organisms' lack of evolution actually supports Charles Darwin's theory of evolution."
No matter what the evidence atheists will attempt to claim this. First of all the ideas of natural selection and mutation were around before Darwin. He didn't come up with these ideas and to credit him is either ignorant or dishonest. He simply proposed, with no evidence, that natural selection and random mutation resulted in universal common desc3ent. What's being objected to isn't that natural selection and random mutation occur, that's a dishonest strawman, it's the idea that universal common descent occurred. To conflate the two is disingenuous. So far I have seen very little evidence to support hypotheses of universal common descent.
(Score: 5, Funny) by hoochiecoochieman on Tuesday February 03 2015, @05:35PM
Unlike you, he quoted his references, so he's winning 1-0.
(Score: 1) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 03 2015, @11:47PM
I wonder if the A/C's reference is the Bible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 04 2015, @02:49AM
While I am a Christian by faith I don't claim to have all the answers. There are many things I can't explain. But from an evidence perspective I just don't see evidence supporting UCD. Regardless of what I may believe I am merely pointing out that UCD is unsupported by evidence. You may not like this fact but no matter how much you don't like it doesn't change the facts. The burden isn't on me to disprove UCD it's on proponents to provide supporting evidence and so far I simply haven't seen any. This article certainly doesn't provide any.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday February 04 2015, @06:01PM
I am merely pointing out that UCD is unsupported by evidence
Look up the name Carl Woese. There is molecular evidence that life branched out very early in three directions from a common ancestor. One branch, probably more similar to the earliest life than the other branches, led to bacteria like those in the article, which have survived in niches that are more similar to early conditions on Earth, one branch led to the rest of the bacteria, and the third branch led to pretty much everything else.
(Score: 5, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 03 2015, @05:45PM
> So far I have seen very little evidence to support hypotheses of universal common descent.
No, you'd need to build some kind of "family tree" of all species, living and dead, showing life forms changing their form over generations and branching into different species. I guess you could try to do this by looking at the physical characteristics of organisms and assuming that those with similar features are somehow related, taking into account geographical relationships. A big task for living species, but not impossible I suppose. Of course, for the extinct species that would involve building some kind of highly extensive record of fossils, a "fossil record", if you will that attempts to add extinct species in the family tree as well. You'd have to account not only for geography but also for time, so you'd want to work out the age of all those fossils too. Who's got time for that?
Of course, your task would be much easier if there were some clue actually inside each living thing - perhaps something deep in the chemistry of all living cells that enables inheritance of traits, and allows us to trace the familial connections between them. Something common to all life on Earth. If only there were such a thing.
Then you'd have to cross-reference your family tree and your inherited-cellular chemistry and hope that it all more or less matched up. I mean, what are the chances of pulling that off, for all of the millions and millions of recorded species of plant, insect, bird, animal, fungus and bacteria ever recorded? Only if the two different things matched up really well, for millions and millions of species, that fits well with what we know of the time and geography that the live in, could you sensibly conclude that all life on Earth is related, and therefore all sprung from the same origin.
What a shame that there isn't a dedicated branch of science that has been busily doing exactly that for the last couple of centuries. We'd be well into the project by now!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 03 2015, @10:10PM
"No, you'd need to build some kind of "family tree" of all species, living and dead, showing life forms changing their form over generations and branching into different species."
Showing that there are various life forms that share similarities and differences doesn't mean anything. Cars and bikes share similarities and differences yet no one would assume they, by themselves, evolved from one another or a common ancestor.
"Of course, for the extinct species that would involve building some kind of highly extensive record of fossils, a "fossil record""
Unfortunately the fossil record comes nowhere near what we would expect if UCD is true. Abrupt changes followed by long periods of stasis and more abrupt changes with very rough transitions. Sure you can come up with nonsense explanations to explain away why the evidence isn't what we would expect if UCD is true but I'm not interested in such explanations. I want evidence for UCD and it's not there.
"Of course, your task would be much easier if there were some clue actually inside each living thing - perhaps something deep in the chemistry of all living cells that enables inheritance of traits, and allows us to trace the familial connections between them."
You aren't 'tracing' anything you are simply assuming UCD to be true and basing your alleged relationships on similarities and differences. This doesn't evidence UCD. Similarities and differences exist among all matter and objects. That there are similarities and differences across different organisms means nothing. Bikes and cars have similarities and differences. Different software written by different software designers have similarities and differences. You can likewise 'trace' their alleged 'lineage' by comparing different files but that means nothing.
(Score: 1) by art guerrilla on Wednesday February 04 2015, @02:07AM
"Showing that there are various life forms that share similarities and differences doesn't mean anything. Cars and bikes share similarities and differences yet no one would assume they, by themselves, evolved from one another or a common ancestor."
um, bad example, because that is EXACTLY the case: pneumatic tires came from bikes, essential for cars... *many* bike shops experimented with all sorts of car-like vehicles before they -*ahem*- 'evolved' (sic) into cars as we know them...
perhaps you've even heard tell of a certain set of bike-making brothers who took it a step further...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 04 2015, @02:44AM
No it's a good example. They didn't 'evolve' all on their own through unguided forces, they were put together and assembled.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 03 2015, @05:46PM
You do realize that you don't have to be an atheist to accept evolution by natural selection as the best explanation for the diversity of species, right?
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 03 2015, @05:54PM
What's more, you don't have to accept natural selection & evolution to be an atheist. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who believe in neither. (Not exactly sure what the *do* believe in, but that's not my problem)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday February 03 2015, @05:53PM
What's being objected to isn't that natural selection and random mutation occur, that's a dishonest strawman, it's the idea that universal common descent occurred. To conflate the two is disingenuous. So far I have seen very little evidence to support hypotheses of universal common descent.
This is the first time I have seen someone attempt to shoot and move the goalposts simultaneously.
I hope you stretched first.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bootsy on Tuesday February 03 2015, @07:11PM
If you get a chance visit Down House
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/home-of-charles-darwin-down-house/ [english-heritage.org.uk]
You will not only see a yearly recreation of some of his experiments he did in his own huge back garden but also a discussion of the internal battle that the Christian Charles had with these ideas and their implications. He kept from publishing them for a very long time and his wife had huge issue with them. He didn't just come up with this stuff one day. A awful lot of research was done. A modern day scientist in a University would never have been given this long to see through an idea.
(Score: 2, Informative) by kanweg on Tuesday February 03 2015, @07:17PM
"So far I have seen very little evidence to support hypotheses of universal common descent."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbh1P6DW5I&feature=player_embedded [youtube.com]
You're welcome.
Bert
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 03 2015, @10:15PM
the fact that mitochondria were at first an individual organism, but then were absorbed by many and then all eukaryote cells is evidence of common descent. there are still prokaryotes though so it's not universal.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nobuddy on Tuesday February 03 2015, @10:17PM
I figured at least sites like this would be devoid of the willfully ignorant creationists, as they abhor any form of information. I guess they will even infiltrate places that make their skin crawl to spread their lies.