(Picture from here.)A recent article in science news suggests the human genome is anything but pure. (See here.)
Human being share the flotsam and jetsam from bacteria and viruses and, in fact, some of these insertions have neuronal implications.
This is relatively easy to explain in evolutionary terms. It's also very exciting to see these "dirty" mechanisms having implications in our make up.
It makes the Intelligent Design ideas even more hard to swallow than they already are. If the system under question is so complex that it can only be conceived as divinely created the implication is that the system is elegant and, well, designed. A Porsche, if you will.
But if that Porsche has a Ford 150 fender bolted on one side, the trunk is comes from an MG migit and two of the four tires comes from a different kind of car and one whole side has tank treads, the "design" idea becomes a little hard to support. After a while, one begins to think that this thing was cobbled together out of parts on hand for the purpose at the moment and then bent to fit. Which is, more or less, what happened.
I guess you can think of God as Joe Thumbfingers who reused every good (and bad) idea he had and then welded things together as best he could. Maybe that's a comfort.
Neat evolutionary links:
Fish may not have evolved gills to breathe
Feet the key to human hand evolution
Primate brains wired for math
======================
Wall of Idiots
- Jesus on toast
- Mountaintop Mining
- TV shortens your life
- Exxon Valdez again.
- Rich man's medicine
- Where we get our oil
- Killing giant freshwater fish
- FDA can't regulate BPA
Links of Interest
- 36 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD By Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
- V: Birds Play Guitar
- Space power
- Museum of Hoaxes
- Disappearing star
- Plant/animal hybrid?
- Neanderthal body paint
- Destructive internet social contract
- Homo erectus as early modern man
- Sugar in the New World
- Life on Mars proof this year
- Changes in the maternal brain
- NASA's Electric Icarus
- Aurochs return
DIY
- Smoker
- Cutting glass with string: Here. Here. Here. Here.
- Paper notebook modifications
- Easy recipes
- Reuse of plastic cards
- Green home building
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment