The Bible NETWork ~ Impacting the World for Christ one post at a time!

We have a lot of fruits and vegetables that have been geneticaly modified. We obviously have the ability to detect these modifications since we are the ones who did it. But, suppose we had a global catastrophy and we lost all knowledge of these geneticaly modified fruits and vegetables, could we tell that they had been modified through un-natural means? If the "theory of evolution" was still the framework that science worked from, would scientist see these genetic fruits and see them as completely natural modifications due to the standard mechanisms of time, mutations, and propogation? The question came to mind when I was reading about a type of sweetcorn that had been modified to produce its own pesticide. I could see how this could be explained using ToE. A random genetic mutation led to one of the corn plants producing a toxine that is harmful to the pests in its enviroment. This mutation gave it an advantage over the other plants which led to it living longer and being able to pollinate more. The result is a population of corn plants that have this new beneficial mutation. An entirely new species due to Dawinian evolution.

Of course we know that an intelligence manufactured the modification. But without the knowledge that we did this, would science come to the conclusion that it was entirely an unguided and natural process? Or would it be able to say, this is a manufactured, guided process?

Leviticus 23:22
And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God. - KJV

_________________
Jesus
K L Aghijlar
neither friend nor foe

cris, that is a good thought.

_________________
Cobra (the car, not the poisonous reptile)
all scripture is NRSV unless otherwise noted

cris, that theory is already what we have today. Scientists observe that certain types of plants have a natural repellent against pests and conclude that the repellent developed over a long period through random, passed-on mutations. It may be true, but it could also be true that these plants were designed to be repellent to those pests.

Also, point of order, a "pest repellent" type of corn is not a new species but a variety (it is still corn), and thus would not "prove" Darwinian evolution in your scenario. This is where people get mixed up. If the corn plant mutated into a potato plant that would lend evidence to Darwinian evolution. Corn has been both intentionally and unintentionally bred and hybridized for tens of thousands of years, and so far, the result has been nothing other than more corn. There are thousands of varieties of corn, but it is all still corn.

_________________
Στηθι εδραιος, ως ακμων τυπτομενος. - Ignatius |II Timothy 4:2| All Scripture is NKJV, unless a translation from the Greek text or otherwise noted.
M.A. Theological Studies (New Testament), Faith Seminary, Tacoma WA
Member, Evangelical Theological Society, North American Patristics Society.
Assistant Editor and contributing author of several published and forthcoming publications.

It would be better to say "it's still grass". Corn (or maize) is a domesticated grass. The attributes that make corn so useful for humans were gained through artificial selection and are not present in the grasses it descends from. In the last decade, gene sequencing has allowed scientists to show how some specific genes changed as a result of the simple pressure of human selection. That pressure was exerted long before humans knew about genetic modification or even genes. You can read more about it here.

Here's a picture of a Teosinte "cob" (a grass thought to be the closest living ancestor to the species that was domesticated as corn) and a very small hybridized modern corn cob (source).

_________________
"Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain." (1 Cor. 15:58, NRSV)

Unmarked Scripture is from the ESV.

Kara, I don't understand what you are trying to say here or how it relates to the opening post. Can you please clarify? Thanks.

_________________
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!

Forum Code of Conduct
The Bible NETWork Doctrinal Statement
The NET Bible Study Environment
Pastors Pro-Life Resource Center
Biblical Eldership

That's a seriously interesting question, cris! I'm really not sure that it would be possible to tell if the genetic crossover had occurred by natural means or artificial.
 
What would definitely be possible to see, though, by comparing the modified genome with the original type, would be that a whole new gene had arrived on the scene. This can happen naturally, by the way — hence the concern about planting pesticide-resistant crops! — and the bit in your OP about the "standard mechanisms of time, mutations, and propogation" is actually an out of date summary of ToE.

Contra Ψ-Bob's 'point of order', the mutation of corn into potato is not the kind of supporting evidence the ToE needs in order to be credible. Speciation would be expected to produce two rather similar species at first; and a(nother) very good example of this has recently been reported from Nicaragua:
 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7077/full/nature04325.html – original publication, summary only (unless you can get subscribed access through an academic institution)
http://news.oneindia.in/2010/05/15/fatlipped-fish-evolving-at-recordspeed.html – press pick-up on the recent full publication

When we speak of "ToE" we need to clarify what "ToE" we are describing. The OP says Darwinian evolution, specifically, is the hypothesis that random, beneficial mutations within an organism over a long period of time (long = millions of years) result in new organisms.
Breeding different types of corn to produce a new type of corn does not prove the validity of this hypothesis. That is why I used the corn ---> potato example. Darwinian hypothesis says that one organism (like corn) could become a different organism (potato) through random mutations. In the example advanced of the Nicaraguan cichlids, they are both still cichlids. As of right now, they can even still interbreed (though apparently they prefer not to). This does not "prove" Darwinian evolution. At best, it seems to give evidence that adaptation can occur within a type of organism without the force of geographical separation. In fact, from a simple five minute crash course on cichlid biology, it seems this type of fish is particularly adaptable. It is one of the largest classes of fish on earth, and many (if not most?) can interbreed. Observed variations arising over a relatively short period have been observed in other places than Nicaragua. In lake Victoria, for example, heavy environmental pressures are leading to rapid adaptations within the cichlid population. It would be interesting to me whether a cichlid from Nicaragua could successfully breed with a cichlid from Africa. Moreover, how did a small freshwater fish get dispersed all over the world (some cichlids are tolerant of some salinity, but in the wild none occur in full strength sea water)?

As an aside, Darwinism actually postulates that all life on earth is derived from a single ancestor.

I have no doubt that through environmental or even human actions, new varieties of things can evolve. Yes, according to standard taxonomy, corn is a grass. So is wheat and rice. Why? They are all morphologically and genetically similar. Again, genetic similarity may point to common descent. However, it could also point to a common design. Environments present certain confines within which organisms must operate. It would not be odd that organisms existing within those confines would exhibit similar characteristics, especially if they were designed to do so.

In the case of Teosinte, at least one crop geneticist has postulated that:

He further argues that even though the genes were present to do so, the characteristics introduced to teosinte to make it viable as a food crop would not have naturally arisen because they are in fact detrimental to the reproduction of the plant, such as the softening of the outer case of the seed to make the seed edible. Teosinte seeds are so hard that they are inedible. Corn seed is so soft that without intense pesticide application, pests will easily consume them (unless a new anti-pest gene is introduced through genetic modification). Having grown up on a farm raising corn, I can attest that without intense care, corn (especially sweet corn) does not do well. It must be carefully watered, cultivated, fertilized (corn is notorious for sucking the nutrients out of the soil), pesticized and fugicized.

Oh, by the way, Monsanto (the company who introduced the genetically modified "Roundup Ready" corn) sues farmers when they find their gene in unauthorized crops (like if they saved seeds from Roundup Ready corn or if the Roundup Ready corn crossbreeds with a neighbor's corn crop), so it is entirely possible to identify the specific gene involved.

_________________
Στηθι εδραιος, ως ακμων τυπτομενος. - Ignatius |II Timothy 4:2| All Scripture is NKJV, unless a translation from the Greek text or otherwise noted.
M.A. Theological Studies (New Testament), Faith Seminary, Tacoma WA
Member, Evangelical Theological Society, North American Patristics Society.
Assistant Editor and contributing author of several published and forthcoming publications.

The ToE that I am using is the popular one used in common layman terms. A friend of mine graduated with a degree in biology and when he and I talk about it he will always use some example of micro evolution to prove macro. This is the classic bait and switch that is used to convince people of the theory. Michael Shermer used Kangaroos. In Hawaai the kangaroos have evolved into a new species. This is evidenced by the fact that kangaroos in Australia cannot breed with kangaroos from Hawaii. (For genetic reasons, not because they are on seperate continents). So, when I said "a new species", I was trying to speak from that mindset.

Thanks for the encouraging responses. I have been trying to think of where this will go in its implications. If it is not possible to distinguish between the natural mechanics and the intelligent intent that guides the mechanics in cases where we have been the intelligence, then it would seem that science cannot make the claims that it does. By science I mean the current paradigm that calls itself science, (just to be clear).

Help me with my logic here. This is how I would state the argument that seems to be what people like Dawkins use.
1) If God had designed and created the natural world then we would see evidence of His design in the natural process.
2) We do not see this evidence.
3) therefore God could not have designed and created the natural world.

Help me out. Is this a correct interpretation of how they reason? How do they reason from evolution to no God?

This is a heavy dose of science here and one that I could not do as profusely as Psychob has clearly done.
I would add that there is a seed bank somewhere up in the great white north that has every conceivable seed in its vault for a future event if one thinks cataclysmic.
The idea that the ‘fit survive” a Darwinian expression, brings this particular science project into a new light, manipulation. We humans are good at manipulating things are we not? The idea that something is created by human ingenuity is to pause and remember God owns everything, go make your own mutations I can here coming from the echos

_________________
Kola,

Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

........................Senecio articulatus....................................Senecio articulatus × rowleyanus...(Senecio 'Hippogriff')...........................Senecio rowleyanus....................all the same type of plant?

Lions and tigers can interbreed (though they prefer not to); would you say they are not different organisms, Ψ-Bob? Horses and donkeys? Blackberries and raspberries? Apples and pears? The logic of your case about the cichlids would drive you to saying that that they are both simply cats, or equids, or Rubus, or maloids. You thus have a defence against any demonstration of speciation in action, in that you can simply say that if interbreeding is in any way still possible, the organisms are still the same; but your circumscriptions of what constitutes particular types of organism, based as they will be on one characteristic only, will seem rather arbitrary when set alongside the ones they replace, which are based on a rich sets of ecological, behavioural and genetic descriptors. This isn't just an abstruse technical point, either: you buy this defence at the cost of sacrificing some apparently rather clear distinctions between types of organism, such as the ones listed (and pictured) above.
 
Though you haven't used the words, all you're doing is setting up the supposedly fundamental and qualitative distinction between micro- and macro-evolution, and locating the boundary between the two wherever you need to put it in order to resist the latest piece of evidence for evolution in action.
 
And saying, "Darwinian evolution, specifically, is the hypothesis that random, beneficial mutations within an organism over a long period of time (long = millions of years) result in new organisms," is all very well, but if you want your arguments to be relevant, they need to engage with where evolutionary theory is now, not where it may have been a hundred years ago.

I've read the article you link to, and the heart of the author's argument seems to be this:
 

Each domesticated crop has been derived from its wild progenitor species through mutations at many different loci. The mutations involved in domestication of crops are unique. Although useful to human beings these mutations are deleterious for the wild types. The initial domestication and subsequent improvement in all the domesticated crops resulted from these special mutations.
Till late twentieth century it was believed that most of the domestication related traits are conditioned by recessive loss-of-function alleles. Now the results of [Quantitative Trait Locus] mapping studies and cloning of the few genes analyzed show a less consistent pattern. Some of these are base pair substitutions or deletions or there are expression level differences caused by mutations in regulatory regions. Most of the regulatory mutations also resulted through loss of genetic material, or base pair substitutions. There is no evidence of evolution of any new gene.
Clue to the fact that it is creation comes from the finding that many genes associated with domestication of crops and their further improvement are loss-of-function mutations or there was loss of certain portion of genetic material. Loss-of-function mutations can not be used to explain evolution rather it supports creation. The genetic information in the wild progenitor species of the domesticated crops was meticulously pre-designed (or say intelligent design) in such a manner that these could easily be transformed to domesticated crops.

 
All it is, though, is a bare assertion that loss-of-function mutations could not be part of evolution. Can you (or anyone else) explain why on earth not?

Oh, and finally, fish colonise newly-formed ponds and lakes via eggs sticking to wading birds' legs. A slim chance of it happening to an egg, it is true, but fish lay an awful lot of eggs!

cris — it grieves me to hear you buying into the Dawkins-type claim that "science" is making claims about the existence or otherwise of God, on the basis of evolutionary theory or anything else. Dawkins, or Shermer, may be making this claim, and one of them may be a scientist by trade; but that's not at all the same thing! Science by its very nature is about nature; it simply isn't there to answer questions about anything outside beyond it.
 
That's where I think both the Dawkinsites and the ID brigade come unstuck. They both want to turn God into a scientific hypothesis, a finite actor within creation, and to dispute whether this event or that must (or must not) have been caused by him. A more biblical view seems to me to be that all of the universe, at all times, holds together and proceeds on its way because God wills it to do so.

Talking about evidence for microevolution as evidence for evolution per se is not a bait and switch trick at all, btw. There is no hard and fast dividing line to be drawn between micro- and macro-evolution: it's a continuum.

_________________
Jesus
K L Aghijlar
neither friend nor foe

........................Senecio articulatus....................................Senecio articulatus × rowleyanus...(Senecio 'Hippogriff')...........................Senecio rowleyanus....................all the same type of plant?

Huh — it all looked so pretty last night in the post three slots up the page, and now the image link for the hybrid in the middle has stopped working! Try again...

Thanks for the concern andy. I do not buy into the claim that micro or macro evolution disprove that it is all created and designed by God. But from their point of view it somehow does. They make the mistake of saying-- A) we know how nature functions, B) therefore God could not have created it. At least that is how it appears to me. My question is how do they make that jump from A to B. And I agree that science has limmits. It can help us to see how the natural world functions now. But that is all. My reasoning for asking the question that I did was aimed at showing this very thing. If we can not see the marks of design in biology when we are the ones who designed it then how could we rule out design as a hypothesis. And if what we have accomplished with gene manipulation has occured at a faster pace than what the natural mechanism could have done on its own then it would seem that putting time tables on creation would be flawed also. I just wanted to refine the idea I had by putting it here so I could get some specific feedback.



Amen!



I respectfuly do not wish to argue this point. We may get to the end of that road and reallize we believe the same or different. I, myself, am still working through my own thoughts on that subject.
Again, I do not buy into Dawkins' or my high school biology teacher's idea that evolution disproves God. But how do they make the jump from A) to B)? What would the logic look like?