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Politics : Evolution
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To: Greg or e who wrote (59522)10/7/2014 1:21:40 PM
From: TigerPaw  Read Replies (1) of 69300
 
Natural Selection is still the cornerstone of biology.

The experiments of Desai do show that evolution is consistent.

Desai’s plan was to track the yeast strains as they grew under identical conditions and then compare their final fitness levels

See, the critical constraint on this experiment is that all of the yeast strains grow under identical conditions. They all face the same selection pressures so it is no surprise that there were similar survivors. No doubt during all these generations there were a few mutations. It is of no surprise that none of these mutations were better at surviving these pressures than the existing genes which had already been selected for generations to conform to this specific condition.

If Desai would start raising half of the yeast in a progressively different condition with no cross pollination then I predict the two strains would diverge. (In fact that experiment has been run many times). The critical condition of Natural Selection is the selection.

As to life restarting and coming out with identical results..... There is no way that this planet would maintain identical conditions. Chaos theory shows that even small differences will cause large differences over time. When the dinosaurs were dominant and the planet was hit by a giant meteor, the dinosaurs did not return to prominence even though they had the most successful existing characteristics. The difference is that the planet was now subject to different selection pressures and therefore had a different outcome.
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