Myth of evolution and new drug discovery

[edwest2]

A few times here, I was told that evolutionary theory is somehow directly tied to new drug discovery. And that if evolution would give way to a creationist model, goodbye new drugs. While watching a science program on TV, I watched the drug discovery process in action. Hundreds of plastic tubes sitting in dozens of racks were given a measured dose of some substance in an effort to find out if it would kill whatever was in the tubes. Out of the few successes, the next job was to determine what effect the trial substance would have on living things, which is why laboratories use animals. If that goes well, the substance is considered for human trials. But even if the substance is approved for use, how often do we hear on TV, the following: “Some side effects may occur in a small percentage of individuals. These include liver failure, kidney failure, and heart failure.”

I am all for scientific research and new drugs to treat illnesses but I am against making a false link between evolutionary theory and new drug discovery. The more recent improvements in drug discovery involve using computers to gather and correlate information to save time and money. But there is no direct link to some evolution based formula and new drug discovery.

neamh.cns.uni.edu/MedInfo/drug_discovery.html

Peace,
Ed

 

[CGDouglas]

But there is no direct link to some evolution based formula and new drug discovery.

neamh.cns.uni.edu/MedInfo/drug_discovery.html

Peace,
Ed

Antibiotics and Bacterial resistance still shows a strong and direct link:
health.howstuffworks.com/question561.htm
Health@How Stuff Works:

There are a number of ways to get a resistance gene:

• During transformation - in this process, akin to bacterial sex, microbes can join together and transfer DNA to each other.
• On a small, circular, extrachromosomal piece of DNA, called a plasmid - one plasmid can encode resistance to many different antibiotics.
• Through a transposon - transposons are “jumping genes,” small pieces of DNA that can hop from DNA molecule to DNA molecule. Once in a chromosome or plasmid, they can be integrated stably.
• By scavenging DNA remnants from degraded, dead bacteria.

God Bless.

Chris.

 

[edwest2]

Bacteria were found in dirt in Canada that were already resistant to natural and synthetic antibiotics.

Your statements in no way show a pathway between some evolutionary formula and new drug discovery. The new way is, in fact, the old way: trial and error. Nothing more. Speeded up with computers and databases but that’s it.

Why do we invoke Darwin?

uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/philip-skell-revisited/

Peace,
Ed

 

[liquidpele]

A few times here, I was told that evolutionary theory is somehow directly tied to new drug discovery. And that if evolution would give way to a creationist model, goodbye new drugs. While watching a science program on TV, I watched the drug discovery process in action. Hundreds of plastic tubes sitting in dozens of racks were given a measured dose of some substance in an effort to find out if it would kill whatever was in the tubes. Out of the few successes, the next job was to determine what effect the trial substance would have on living things, which is why laboratories use animals. If that goes well, the substance is considered for human trials. But even if the substance is approved for use, how often do we hear on TV, the following: “Some side effects may occur in a small percentage of individuals. These include liver failure, kidney failure, and heart failure.”

I am all for scientific research and new drugs to treat illnesses but I am against making a false link between evolutionary theory and new drug discovery. The more recent improvements in drug discovery involve using computers to gather and correlate information to save time and money. But there is no direct link to some evolution based formula and new drug discovery.

neamh.cns.uni.edu/MedInfo/drug_discovery.html

Peace,
Ed

Evolution is not used to MAKE the drugs, but the understanding of it is helpful in the race war in things like antibiotics and especially vaccines. Or didn’t you notice they have to re-make the flu vaccine every year?

 

[edwest2]

Yes, I know. But that is why a certain comedian looked at the camera recently and said, “Hey Creationists. Viruses evolve.”

As I’ve pointed out in the past, viruses have the built-in ability to modify their outer protein coat.

viruses > ----------------- > billions of generations >------------------------- > still viruses

Hopefully, someone reading this will notice that this is true and is observed.

Peace,
Ed

 

[liquidpele]

Yes, I know. But that is why a certain comedian looked at the camera recently and said, “Hey Creationists. Viruses evolve.”

As I’ve pointed out in the past, viruses have the built-in ability to modify their outer protein coat.

viruses > ----------------- > billions of generations >------------------------- > still viruses

Hopefully, someone reading this will notice that this is true and is observed.

Peace,
Ed

Once again, you’re not looking at the reality of it correctly. To use an analogy I used in a different thread, take a random car anywhere in the world. Do you think the probability of it getting in a fender bender is the same as it catching fire and exploding? You’re essentially looking at fender benders and asking why we don’t see cars exploding all over the place.

Viruses change… that is evolution. Viruses will probably not change into something extremely more complex anytime within your lifetime, and if you did, you would have to monitor every virus on Earth which is ridiculous.

Now you’ll likely ask why viruses don’t change drastically but animals do. Guess what? Animals DON’T. They don’t turn into x-men, they just change according to simple rules that they ALREADY HAVE. Just like viruses! And just like some animals diverge and can no longer reproduce, viruses can diverge and no longer combine to form meaningful replication. For instance, different flu viruses combined to create H1N1, but you can’t combine the flu and malaria because the two are just too different.

Now you’ll want to know how we know that we evolved from simple single celled organisms. Truth is, we don’t know for sure! There are no fossils after a certain point in time due to the small size of the life then (they keep shrinking up until that point). However, ignoring all the evidence that says it looks like we did is absurd. I mean, it’s like we have just ridiculous amounts of evidence from multiple fields pointing to the fact that we evolved and that the Earth is very old, and you point to a virus and say “na ah! I know the truth!”. Good luck with that.

 

[edwest2]

Once again, you’re not looking at the reality of it correctly. To use an analogy I used in a different thread, take a random car anywhere in the world. Do you think the probability of it getting in a fender bender is the same as it catching fire and exploding? You’re essentially looking at fender benders and asking why we don’t see cars exploding all over the place.

Viruses change… that is evolution. Viruses will probably not change into something extremely more complex anytime within your lifetime, and if you did, you would have to monitor every virus on Earth which is ridiculous.

Now you’ll likely ask why viruses don’t change drastically but animals do. Guess what? Animals DON’T. They don’t turn into x-men, they just change according to simple rules that they ALREADY HAVE. Just like viruses! And just like some animals diverge and can no longer reproduce, viruses can diverge and no longer combine to form meaningful replication. For instance, different flu viruses combined to create H1N1, but you can’t combine the flu and malaria because the two are just too different.

Now you’ll want to know how we know that we evolved from simple single celled organisms. Truth is, we don’t know for sure! There are no fossils after a certain point in time due to the small size of the life then (they keep shrinking up until that point). However, ignoring all the evidence that says it looks like we did is absurd. I mean, it’s like we have just ridiculous amounts of evidence from multiple fields pointing to the fact that we evolved and that the Earth is very old, and you point to a virus and say “na ah! I know the truth!”. Good luck with that.

Facts change all the time. Birds evolved from dinosaurs. That was a fact till about three weeks ago.

Peace,
Ed

 

[liquidpele]

Facts change all the time. Birds evolved from dinosaurs. That was a fact till about three weeks ago.

Peace,
Ed

You’re making it out to be a bigger deal than it is. Now it’s believed birds evolved from a common ancestor with dinosaurs instead of directly from them. It’s not like they suddenly decided birds were created from magic pink clouds.

 

[CGDouglas]

Bacteria were found in dirt in Canada that were already resistant to natural and synthetic antibiotics.

Your statements in no way show a pathway between some evolutionary formula and new drug discovery. The new way is, in fact, the old way: trial and error. Nothing more. Speeded up with computers and databases but that’s it.

Why do we invoke Darwin?

uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/philip-skell-revisited/

Peace,
Ed

Then what is your hypothesis to bacteria that is every growing, adapting and changing to the antibiotics?

We know a good few things about bacteria, they reproduce very very fast, the rate of genetic mutation included means that in a short span they can quickly adapt to these agents that pose a threat to it.

So what can we deduce? That there is genetic change that allows the species to adapt to it’s environment, even when hostile.

God Bless.

Chris.

 

[CGDouglas]

Facts change all the time. Birds evolved from dinosaurs. That was a fact till about three weeks ago.

Peace,
Ed

How the evolutionary tree, or vine, progresses, we will always learn anew, it doesn’t change the fact that there was a descendance.

God Bless.

Chris.

 

[Benadam]

Hasn’t evolution theory provided a usefull model to run experiments? A model that has proven successfull for making discoveries because it is usefull for predicting what may happen in experiements?

 

[hecd2]

Facts change all the time. Birds evolved from dinosaurs. That was a fact till about three weeks ago.

If you’re referring to Anchiornis huxleyi, then your interpretation is wrong (as usual). If not, then what?

Alec

 

[rossum]

Yes, I know. But that is why a certain comedian looked at the camera recently and said, “Hey Creationists. Viruses evolve.”

As I’ve pointed out in the past, viruses have the built-in ability to modify their outer protein coat.

viruses > ----------------- > billions of generations >------------------------- > still viruses

Hopefully, someone reading this will notice that this is true and is observed.

So, Ed what about:eukaryotes >-----> billions of generations >-----> still eukaryotes
Bear in mind that any multi-celled plant, animal or fungus is a eukaryote, along with a number of single celled organism like amoebae. If you have no problem with humans being related to paramecia and mushrooms then your point is valid. Otherwise you need to think about the difference between "species ", as in Darwin’s title, and the higher taxonomic classifications.

rossum

 

[St_Aloysius_1]

I can’t understand why otherwise rational people are so opposed to the theory of evolution. Any other theory with the evidential support that evolution enjoys is, generally, widely accepted. While certain aspects of the theory may have to change due to dcientific advances that produce new evidence, the basic theiry is incredibly sound.

Even the Church accepts the possibility that God may have chosen evolution as part of His plan for creation. Faith in God as the Creator is not at odds with evolution which is simply a methodology for positive mutations that improve life’s chances to survive. As long as God is the Prime Mover in the process, I don’t understand the issue with evolution’s disbelievers.

 

[Touchstone]

Facts change all the time. Birds evolved from dinosaurs. That was a fact till about three weeks ago.

It wasn’t a fact, ever. It was the reasonable conclusion based on the available evidence. You may be interested in trying to find the word “fact” used as you suggest on this – that is not scientific language to apply to the conclusions. Science is provisional, and constantly open to new evidence as that the basis for revising, updating and overturning its conclusions. The discovery of Anchiornis huxleyi and the subsequent rethinking of the current best conclusions in light of it is precisely the evidence that sicence is not what you claim it is – dogmatic, incorrigible, driven toward *a priori *conclusions.

On the thread topic, this is an informative section on the Cal-Berkeley evolution site about evolution and its relevance and value to medicine:

evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/medicine_01

The bullet points on this page under “Applying our knowledge of evolution” seem particularly apropos in response to your first post.

-TS

 

[puzzleannie]

the examples of viruses changing their structure, and animals changing such as growing longer coats in colder climates, are examples of adaptation, NOT evolution, which is a theory on how one entirely separate distinct species allegedly evolves out of a separate, lower species. There is no evidence that viruses have evolved to a distinct higher species.

 

[liquidpele]

the examples of viruses changing their structure, and animals changing such as growing longer coats in colder climates, are examples of adaptation, NOT evolution, which is a theory on how one entirely separate distinct species allegedly evolves out of a separate, lower species. There is no evidence that viruses have evolved to a distinct higher species.

And how did they adapt? They changed physically. That’s evolution.

I’m tired of people trying to separate micro and macro evolution. The only difference is the timescale. I suppose you might be able to argue against large evolutionary jumps, but most scientists would probably agree with you.

 

[Touchstone]

the examples of viruses changing their structure, and animals changing such as growing longer coats in colder climates, are examples of adaptation, NOT evolution, which is a theory on how one entirely separate distinct species allegedly evolves out of a separate, lower species. There is no evidence that viruses have evolved to a distinct higher species.

It’s the same process. Saying you affirm one, but doubt the other is to say you believe in millimeters but reject the concept of the kilometer.

Change happens, and the amount and rate of change that becomes fixed in populations is dependent on the environment. Where the environment supports a stable form, like bacteria, we may see offshoots from that, but the niche bacteria inhabit remains a viable, profitable one, and thus there is selective pressure toward that form, and that may (and has) stay that way for a very, very long time. It’s useful to think of these changes as optimizations for a particular environment, and when a search path finds a local optimum, change away from that is discouraged by the evironment by the same pressures that pushed it toward the optimum in the first place.

-TS

 

[edwest2]

Hasn’t evolution theory provided a usefull model to run experiments? A model that has proven successfull for making discoveries because it is usefull for predicting what may happen in experiements?

No. It has not. Thousands of chemical combinations are tried. It’s trial and error. Computers and the introduction of microarrays have speeded up the process and cut costs but that’s it.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

Then what is your hypothesis to bacteria that is every growing, adapting and changing to the antibiotics?

We know a good few things about bacteria, they reproduce very very fast, the rate of genetic mutation included means that in a short span they can quickly adapt to these agents that pose a threat to it.

So what can we deduce? That there is genetic change that allows the species to adapt to it’s environment, even when hostile.

God Bless.

Chris.

Simple. Bacteria have built-in abilities. They are pre-existing. Bacteria can exchange bits of genetic material with other species of bacteria. Too bad macro-creatures can’t do that. But at the end of the day, they remain bacteria.

Peace,
Ed