Evolution Message Board - Msg: 11246333

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Politics : Evolution

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To: TigerPaw who wrote (274)	9/14/1999 1:08:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) of 69300

Against this idea I submit the example of the asexual reproducers. Let's take E. Coli, which has had a million generations in flasks across the world. Okay, so there are ten thousand cataloged mutants - but they are still obviously and identifiably E. Coli. So there seems to be some "centering" mechanism at work within a species whose genetic ratchet only goes one way. Granted, bacteria share plasmids the way kids share Pokemon, but only a subset of genes are on this "biological Zip drive" format. I don't know what the "centering" mechanism would be - could be environment, could be a feature of the transcription machinery - but species are remarkably stable things. The mechanism of speciation is currently one of the hot open questions in evolution theory. It hasn't been observed, nor do we have fossils showing the speciation timeline. It gives room for catastrophists and "ongoing deliberate creation" proponents to voice their theories. One thing's for sure - there is fun to be had exploring the concepts. It depends on whether you consider a Chihuahua and a Rottweiler to be different species. I am not sure but I don't think so ... they can interbreed. "Breeds" within the envelope of a species?

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