Would viruses altering evolution also be intelligent design?
Is genetic manipulation a part of evolution?
- Thread starter w1z4rd
- Start date
Would viruses altering evolution also be intelligent design?
That would depend on how the virus came to be.
The same as humans. They evolved.
That doesn't change anything in the assumption that they evolved.
and about the article. Shame that they don't consult the specialists: biologists.
It only shows that microbes can survive impacts with the Earth, once thought
to kill everything. Seeding?
It actually only shows that one scientist thinks he has found some alien microbes that are completely unlike life on earth. But it isn't published yet, nor do they know what they are looking at.
Maybe if the environment would remain the same and there wouldn't be a chaotic element to the system.
theoretically speaking, genetic modifications could be considered similar to mutations, but in the way we want.
Evolution is basically a collection of successful mutations that lead to the survival of a species
Hence, genetic modifications that is crucial to the survival of a species is evolution, but it might be hard to meet that criteria
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Evolution is basically a collection of successful mutations that lead to the survival of a species
Hence, genetic modifications that is crucial to the survival of a species is evolution, but it might be hard to meet that criteria
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Basically, it doesn't matter how the genetic variations occur, either by random mutation, non-random mutation, genetic manipulation, or whatever. If the genes are passed down and subject to selection, then that can be called evolution. Simple genetic manipulation alone could only be called evolution in the sense that evolution led to humans who are able to manipulate genes.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Genetic manipulation at the molecular level the way we're doing it now has not been an aspect of evolution, but we have been manipulating the DNA of domesticated animals since we invented the technology of animal husbandry somewhere between eight and twelve thousand years ago. Look at what we've done with the dog. It's now a separate subspecies of wolf, Canis lupus familiaris. Their gene pool has been so manipulated that it's questionable whether they could survive in a world without humans. They have smaller brains, teeth more suitable for scavenging our garbage than tearing flesh, and the instinct to form huge multi-species packs that's more suitable for birds.
Still, I take the position that "evolution" was originally meant to mean only natural selection, since only a fraction of a micropercent of it has occurred under human guidance.
Viruses are not intelligent by anybody's definition so I think we can safely say no. The whole point of "intelligent design" is conscious control over the process to achieve a consciously defined goal.
Boy if, A. those are really alien microbes and, B. they really resemble life on earth so closely that they're not only carbon-based but have recognizable double-helix DNA... that will be one hell of a discovery! It will be immensely strong evidence in support of the hypothesis that the type of abiogenesis that gave rise to the first lifeforms on earth is the only viable type there is.
I'm not sure how the religionists would take to that. If there really is a supernatural creator, you'd think he would have the resources to be able to create life in another environment whose structure is correlated more closely with the peculiarities of that environment. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't it be boring to do the same thing all over again? Wouldn't you just love to mess with silicon-based life, or life that evolves in a totally gaseous environment, or even interstellar space? Did Gene Roddenberry have a better imagination than God?
Human selection is just another kind of environment.
Wild dogs revert to a standard type.
Wild dogs revert to a standard type.
Fraggle said:
Well I wouldn't really say that. Many of the molecular tools employed to conduct genetic manipulations are in fact adapted from nature. E.g. creation of transgenic plants relies on a Agrobacterium plasmid, with which the bacterium introduces DNA into plants. Or the already mentioned viruses, which are used as transfecting agents, or transposons, and so on.
Of course, nature did not use targeted manipulations, as we can do today, however the mechanisms of genetic manipulation are ancient and had already played significant roles in evolution.
Just thought I'd step in here: the refusal to consider this evolution is, in a way, semantic, and so is its inclusion. Evolution is merely change in gene frequencies: this clearly has occurred, although the change is necessarily slight. So it's evolution, but not much, really.
Its evolution, because everything we (all living and non living things) do here on this earth affects it and causes it to change.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Yes but they don't revert to wolves. They remain a distinct subspecies, with smaller brains, a scavenger's teeth, and a quasi-human social instinct.
Well sure. I assumed that the topic was, implicitly, genetic manipulation by humans.
sowhatifit'sdark
Valued Senior Member
Nuclear war is evolution.
The naysayers are just fussy.
The naysayers are just fussy.