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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: 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.