The same way we get proteins now. Transcription, translation, mutation, selection . . .
You are speculating that modern bacteria are the simplest life possible.
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It is the only evidence we have at this point.
I don’t see how it can be evidence at all for how simple life can be. Bacteria are the product of 3.5 billion years of evolution which has continually added dependencies and contingencies into its systems. You might as well start pulling out parts from your car until it stops running and then proclaim that this is the simplest car possible. Doesn’t work that way.
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Again you’re speculating without evidence. You’re thinking is also circular assuming bacteria evolved.
Not really. This is related to appearance of affirming the consequent in scientific thinking. Have you learned about this yet?
No, I’m not speculating.
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I have not. Thank you for the citation.
Just citing a paper is not helpful. Please state your case and show how the paper supports your case.
It’s 29+ tests for common ancestry and evolution. I don’t see how you can say that evolution is speculation when it is trivially simple to use Google and find the evidence and scientific tests.
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I think my claim was that evolution by random mutation was speculation. This paper does not support your claim. It supports common descent independent of mechanism. The weakness of this paper is that it highlights the similarities but does not give a detailed account of the differences.
That’s what the tests do, test for evolution by random mutation.
Please explain this. Why aren’t these tests for random mutations as the cause for differences between lineages?
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This is false. This is what Lenski attempted to do.
They are simply observations of historical lineages. This is from the paper you cited.
Please explain. How are these not a test for random mutations causing divergence between lineages?
Genetic drift is caused by random mutations. It is responsible for the lineage specific mutations that are being tested for. Inherent in all of those tests is the mechanism of random mutations which causes different mutations to accumulate in each lineage after speciation.
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If you mean, by “random mutation”, mutation due to any and all of the biochemical mechanisms known to cause changes in DNA sequence, then this statement isn’t really correct.
Sometimes I find it helpful to recall just what we are talking about. Evolution is about two things - common ancestry, and descent with modification, these modifications arising due to the combined “forces” of random drift and natural selection acting on heritable variability.
The only known sources of heritable variability are all grounded in biochemical and molecular mechanisms. No exceptions. This is not speculation, but fact borne of decades of research.
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I don’t think this is a claim you can support.
If you say some of the changes can be explained I think that is ok.
You don’t yet have a connection between drift natural selection and complex morphological change such as a cardio vascular system.
When I read this, I gather you are claiming we either know nothing about the molecular and genetic underpinnings of complex morphology in different organisms, or that there is no genetic basis for complex morphology. You could not be more mistaken.
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Thats not my claim. Lets look at Joshua’s claim below which I agree with as a response to Aswin. Lets start from here and it may prevent a long discussion in the weeds.
@art’s claim is consistent with what I wrote. He does not claim to know every detail or to say every process is known. Rather he correctly notes we understand quite a bit.
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It sounds to me like your stance amounts to “we don’t know everything, therefore design”. I will admit I don’t understand reasoning like this.
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I think"we don’t know everything, therefore design" is a weak claim.
I think"we don’t know but science will eventually figure out" is an equally weak claim.
The observation of functional information is a real challenge for evolutionary theory.
We know that conscious intelligence can create almost unlimited amounts of it. There is no other identified mechanism that can.
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