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From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Chairs and Chromosomes
Message-ID: <1005@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Apr-85 16:34:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1005
Posted: Mon Apr 29 16:34:51 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 1-May-85 05:54:17 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center
Lines: 77



> In article <330@iham1.UUCP> rck@iham1.UUCP writes:
>> 6.  No known mutation has ever produced a form of life  having
>>     both  greater  complexity and greater viability [a,b] than
>>     any of its ancestors [c-f].

> [Mike Huybensz]
> Single mutations seldom would cause a new species to develop.  However...
> Autopolyploidy in plants is a standard trick of plant breeders to
> develop more vigorous plants by doubling or tripling their chromosome
> numbers.  Several species of plants are believed to have arisen
> naturally by this method.  I'd say that more chromosomes satisfies the
> greater complexity clause.

I'm a little surprised that you didn't say they satisfy the greater
viability clause.  That is more obviously true.

For complexity, I'd say number of chromosomes is meaningless.  There
is no relationship between chromosome count and complexity.

Man has 46.
Chrysanthemums: 18 - 198
Crustacea have from 8 to 208
Arachnids have from 6 to 84
Birds: 12-80
Insects: 5-380
The Radiolaria protozoa have over 800 chromosomes.  Are they therefore
more complex than any living organism descended from them? (Whatever
that might be...)

Chrysanthemums vary from 18 to 198 chromosomes.  Which one is most
complex?  Are they any different?

Salamanders have about half as many chromosomes as us, but twenty times
as much DNA.  One could say "I'd say that more DNA satisfies the
greater complexity clause."  How many and which parameters do you want
to consider?

>>     a)  ''Do we, therefore, ever see mutations going about the
>>         business  of producing new structures for selection to
>>         work on? No  nascent  organ  has  ever  been  observed
>>         emerging,  though  their origin in pre-functional form
>>         is  basic  to  evolutionary  theory.  Some  should  be
>>         visible  today,  occurring  in  organisms  at  various
>>         stages up to integration of a functional  new  system,
>>         but we don't see them: there is no sign at all of this
>>         kind  of  radical  novelty.  Neither  observation  nor
>>         controlled  experiment  has  shown  natural  selection
>>         manipulating mutations so as to produce  a  new  gene,
>>         hormone,  enzyme  system  or organ.'' [Michael Pitman,
>>         ADAM AND EVOLUTION (London: Rider, 1984), pp. 67-68.]

> Duplicated chromosomes would count as new structures, since each copy is
> then free to mutate in different directions.

So if I make a chair, and then I make another one, I have a new kind of
furniture - a new structure by duplication?  Come on.  Yes, the
chromosomes are free to mutate, but that in itself is no demonstration
of anything, except that they mutate.  It does not demonstrate, e.g.,
that any new structure *does* arise.

> There are quite a few candidates for nascent organs (assuming you are
> referring to things we can see today, rather than "evolution in one
> year right under my nose".)  Two examples I'm well familiar with are
> the development of claws in the family Dryinidae (some wasps parasitic
> on Homoptera) from the first tarsal segment, and the development of
> claws from a spur of the femur of mites parasitic in the gills of
> Hermit Crabs (Ewingidae, recently placed in the family Glycyphagidae.)

Ok.  You might have something here.  Please post some references.

-- 
                                                                    |
Paul DuBois	{allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois        --+--
                                                                    |
"There are two sides to every argument, until you take one."        |