Common descent, with gene loss in common ancestors on various lineages being inherited by it’s subsequent descendants. It’s right there in the graph, look at the circles on the phylogenetic tree, those are most of the major gene losses explained as having occurred in common ancestors. The pattern overall makes good sense on a tree.
The WNT is a control for variable cell division in eukaryotic cells. If it is lost cell types are completely lost.
And yet the organisms clearly live without these genes, so they’re not “completely lost” whatever that even means. Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly, doesn’t have Wnt2, Wnt3, Wnt4, Wnt11, Wnt17, and WntA. It is still alive, it is an organisms that exists and functions without these genes. So if it would be “completely lost”(whatever the spoon that means) without them, one has to wonder why it doesn’t have them yet still lives.
The different WNT protein types are expressed in different cells and tissues.
Yeah like amylase is expressed in spit, and in your gut, and if you lost the gene, you couldn’t digest starch. I guess you’d have to eat proteins and fats and sugars that amylase isn’t active on. So the fact that some gene is expressed in different tissues or cells is not any kind of argument against it being lost and the organism being able to live without it.
I see no viable evolutionary explanation for this pattern.
Try uninstalling your blinders then.
A mind that understands biology (beyond our understanding) could mix and match cell types generating new organisms.
And Leman Russ could probably beat Sanguinius in an armwrestling match.
Genes lost on the tree in common ancestors of multiple depicted species are colored red, gene losses not inherited from common ancestors I’ve colored orange.
As you can see the majority of the pattern (all the red blocks I’ve marked with rectangles) makes sense on a tree as single losses having occurred at varying times, in different common ancestors. And remember, it is entirely possible that numerous of these losses are actually still present in some degraded pseudogene form in many of the species listed on the tree, as the authors themselves state they counted pseudogenes as “lost”, even though technically a highly similar but nonfunctional Wnt DNA sequence might still be present in the species genomes.
You are talking about new cell types with organisms that share a common ancestor in the diagram. Are you basing your claim on gut feel? Is there any data that would put this theory in doubt in your mind? These guys are claiming design in unfalsifiable well how about evolution?
Easy. Show the phylogenetic tree created from the fossil record is totally incompatible with the one generated from from the genetic record. Or give an objective list of “kinds” and positively identify the barrier which makes it impossible for one “kind” to have evolved from another “kind”.
How do you explain the pattern where trial and error are losing and gaining genes at hyper rates and getting them fixed in a population? Then all of a sudden that process completely stops in vertebrates. Does this look like trial and error to you?
Where is this happening? Point out examples of loss and gain, and then show that the rate is “hyper”. Where are these gains you speak of? How do you figure the rate is hyper?
Oh, good. Now that you’ve asked, @colewd is going to provide the evidence you have so politely requested. Finally. No way he’s just going to make a whole bunch more unsupported assertions that have no relationship whatsoever with the extant data. What a relief.
In several cases the gene loss is occurring in the line of the common ancestor but not shared by the species that share that ancestor. I assume you would explain this by gene gain but may be mistaken. By “hyper” I mean 30% gene loss in invertebrates where no mutation happens in vertebrates. Do you have an explanation for this.
Another area to explore is if the fizzled receptor is also lost in these lineages.
No. There is no need to invoke that event anywhere. If you see a gene lost in one species but not in another, then it was just lost in that species, not in their common ancestor. There is no reason to infer that the gene was los in the common ancestor of both but then re-gained.
And the organism that exists today doesn’t have those genes(at least, no functional version of them). That’s why they’re counted as “lost”. So clearly it doesn’t need them to be alive and function as the organism it is.
The organism exists. It doesn’t have those genes, yet lives. Could their loss be one aspect of the evolution of that organisms particular morphology?
Most of the organisms that have suffered the largest numbers of Wnt-family gene losses are comparatively rather simple animals. Organisms like worms, clams, and snails.
