SYMPTOMS OF DEVOLUTION

SYMPTOMS OF DEVOLUTION

In this compilation of news from different articles, w give some facts and figures as presented by researchers and theorists. The purpose is to see, how the Vedic concept of devolution of the species is also confirmed by the scientific discoveries.

NO NEW GENES

July 15: A recent issue of Science features evolution, with ten articles listed in a special box in the Table of Contents. In one, science writer Tim Appenzeller describes an ongoing series of experiments in Richard Lenski’s laboratory at Michigan State University, covering 24,000 generations of Eschereichia coli. They are nifty, closed system experiments of the kind sorely needed in biology. If neo-Darwinian evolution by itself can produce the kind of evolutionary progress that leads to people, one would expect these experiments to show evidence of such progress. After all, as the article notes, that many generations of people takes about half a million years — that long ago there were no people. In actual runs of the experiments, bacteria were able to shift survival strategies under different environments. For example, bacteria that had thrived on glucose could evolve to thrive on maltose if necessary. But such changes apparently depend on mutations that switch control genes on and off, or make other adjustments requiring no long new instruction sequences. Although rearrangements by transposition and recombination were frequent, no new genes with wholly new functions were observed to have been generated. The most striking evolutionary development Appenzeller mentions is the emergence of "a new acetate-scavenging strain." But each time it apeared, "a mutation in the regulatory region of a gene that influences acetate uptake was responsible." So acetate scavenging was a capability for which the ancestral bacteria were already genetically programmed. In our opinion, Lenski’s experiments do not support, but rather cast doubt on the assertion that neo-Darwinian evolution by itself can produce significant evolutionary progress requiring new genes with new functions. (From panspermia.com)

Raport by Dr. Steven Naro, a professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto. Since 1995, we’ve seen the sequencing of the human genome and the completion of highly informative maps for linkage, single nucleotide polymorphisms, and other polymorphisms. We have progressed by orders of magnitude in the last decade, in terms of developing the technology for doing genetic linkage studies, and yet no new genes have been identified.

EXAMPLES:

1) Developing Frankenfoods (genetically modified organisms in food production) involve no new genes, only "switching off" existing genes.

2) Featherless chicken in Israel is a result of genetic loss and not new genes.

3) In speaking of all the mutation work done with bacteria over several decades, the great French zoologist and evolutionist Pierre-Paul Grasse' said:

What is the use of their unceasing mutations if they do not change? In sum, the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect.

4) Genetic Engineering can be defined as introducing foreign genes into an organism which transforms the organisms characteristics. As such, the recent reports of cloning (first Dolly and now a cow in Japan) whole animals cannot be classified as genetic engineering activities as no new genes are introduced.

DEFINITION OF MICRO EVOLUTION - Micro changes in genetics are often misleadingly passed off as evidence for evolution but only represent genetic degeneration or variation already built into the programmed code and will never break the genetic boundary of a living "Kind".

All microevolution involves the loss of genes, never gaining a new gene (Ashcraft).

As we can see all these examples support the concept of devolution that is also found in the Vedas.

RATHER DEGENERATION THEN EVOLUTION

In the following few examples of animal and plants we can see that their genetic degeneration is endangering their survival.

If you like technical explanations, here you can find about “Indirect evidence from DNA sequence diversity for genetic degeneration of the Y-chromosome in dioecious species of the plant Silene: the SlY4/SlX4 and DD44-X/DD44-Y gene pairs”.

http://tinyurl.com/2u9yn8

Zoologists from the Chinese Academy of Forestry Sciences and northeast China's Heilongjiang Province are set to test more than 300 tigers at the Hengdaohezi tiger breeding center.

Zoologists hope the development of the tigers' "DNA pedigrees and genetic management system" will help prevent inbreeding and thus genetic degeneration among the tigers bred in captivity.

"We've discovered genetic degeneration among our bred Siberian tigers," said Liu Dan, the breeding center's general engineer.

The degeneration symptoms included slow body development, blurry stripes, deformity and organ underdevelopment, Liu said.

"The inbreeding coefficient is now at dangerous level inside the center," he said, adding that it would be more likely for mass degeneration to happen if the tracking of the species' genes was not done.

The full article is on: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-09/30/content_268976.htm

Purebred dog breeds have closed studbooks. No new genes are available to the breed, except from infrequent mutations that are usually not desirable. Considering a breed as a whole, genes cannot be gained through selective breeding; they can only be lost. This has lead breeders to question whether a pure breed can go though hundreds of years of selective breeding and still maintain its health and viability. (By Jerold S. Bell, DVM, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine).

Because only wild tree species can survive and preserve their special genetic characteristics over thousands or tens of thousands of years, "nature has screened them for us and preserved their best genetic material. In the future we will need the wild populations even more, as a source from which to select seeds to avoid the genetic degeneration which may occur in artificially cultivated populations," says Chen Hsin-you a Ph.D. botanist from Taiwan.

Essential practices carried out for differentiation and settlement of a new official breed, are not always good for its continuity; in fact they can be harmful and accordingly damages will arise with the course of time. In addition to the risks that a functional event with a small number of individuals brings about, the genetic isolation causes genetic degeneration by a mechanism called “genetic drift”. Inbreeding results in an increasing of homozygosis which ultimate consequence is the destruction of the genetic health of the population. Lastly, artificial selection targeted to what are considered desirable traits, implies a reduction in the size of the reproductive population and, eventually, even higher genetic erosion.

ITALIAN BEES - A strategy for preventing the genetic degeneration of the Italian species of bees should be worked out.

The symptoms of genetic degeneration are found not only in the animal and plant species but in humans as well.

In result of research made by Worldwide Centre of Revival of Humanity in 2005 it's found out that humanity is on the edge of death not only because of wars ecological catastrophes but also mainly because of genetic degeneration.

The genetic degeneration of humans is a HUGE problem for ape-to-man evolutionists.

The following interesting passages come from Nachmann and Crowell:

The high deleterious mutation rate in humans presents a paradox. If mutations interact multiplicatively, the genetic load associated with such a high U [detrimental mutation rate] would be intolerable in species with a low rate of reproduction [like humans and apes etc.] . . .

The reduction in fitness (i.e., the genetic load) due to deleterious mutations with multiplicative effects is given by 1 - e -U (Kimura and Moruyama 1966). For U = 3, the average fitness is reduced to 0.05, or put differently, each female would need to produce 40 offspring for 2 to survive and maintain the population at constant size. This assumes that all mortality is due to selection and so the actual number of offspring required to maintain a constant population size is probably higher.

According to the present scientific estimations the bad mutation are produced faster than one can get rid of them.

Is there any symptom of this? Lets see the following observation and concern about reality.

Even as a percentage, mentally handicapped people are becoming more and more abundant. In the theory of natural selection, the weaker of a species are killed off by natural factors, leaving the strong to reproduce, and thus building a stronger and stronger species. What happens when the weak are more likely to survive than the strong? What happens when very sick or very weak people are kept alive to reproduce? The process of evolution is reversed.

Only in Massachusetts there are between four and six million schoolchildren now taking psychotropic drugs daily like Ritalin so that they can attend school and to decrease ADD (attention deficit disorder). This awful condition is not only due to education but also the genetic degeneration.

Russia, an other great country has no fewer problems than American school children and population. The following passage is from the article written by Gearasimenko N. — Vodka Is Ruining Russia

Tuberculosis is suffocating Russia; syphilis and AIDS are spreading. The addiction to alcohol has reached tremendous size. Almost a half of the country’s population is addicted to alcohol. Alcoholics bear mentally and physically defective children — their chromosomes are already impaired. They (and their children) are unable to produce a healthy posterity. In SSSR, 17% of children are born with congenital imbecility. One more percent will trigger the irreversible process of genetic degeneration of the nation...80% of students have tried drugs other than alcohol and nicotine, while 20% are already addicted to “hard” drugs, like heroine. This percentage is growing each year. They have maximum 4 years left to live.

DNA DAMAGE

Free radicals - Every minute of every day the cells of our bodies are assaulted by particles called oxygen free radicals, also called oxidants. We cannot escape free radicals because our cells produce them during normal metabolism. Additionally, our every day environment contains an abundance of free radicals.

Unfortunately, these radicals produce chain reactions that lead to damage of the DNA in our cells. The aging of our cells is partly the result of free radical damage, also called oxidation. (By Garry Gamber is a public school teacher)

Continual exposure to UV radiation increases the risk of skin cancer due to cumulative damage of the DNA. Espaceially damaging is the UV-B, radiation to humans and plants, has a wavelength of 280-315 nanometers, as measured on the electromagnetic spectrum.

Over-nutrition leads to the production of molecular oxygen species that can lead to damage of the DNA.

The danger - Modern research indicates that a sudden damage of the DNA gives formation to a cancerous state. The predominance of cancer is more noticeable among North Americans and lung cancer affects the majority of the population.

A statistical insight to the worldwide expanse of cancer reveals that:

In the year 2002, 10.9 million new cases of cancer and 6.7 millions cancer deaths were recorded in the world.
24.6 million cancer-affected people have been successfully diagnosed and is still surviving.
The risk of cancer is highest in North America in case males as well as females.
In the developed countries, prostate cancer is more prevalent in comparison to lung cancer.
Among women, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer, which in many cases has proved to be fatal.

It seems that genetic degeneration and damage of DNA have lot to do with the lifestyle of people and the place and circumstance in which they live. In other words, damage of the DNA is due to environmental factors, such as ultraviolet light, irradiation, chemicals etc.

Anyhow, the Vedic scriptures describe that as more pious the people were in the previous millenniums the more they lived pure, healthy and natural life. Thus, they also lived longer and were spiritually much more intelligent.

NOT ONLY GENE DEGENERATION BUT ALSO GENE LOSS

Genetic degeneration and gene loss is a cause of the extinction of the species. Thus it is estimated that unless the rate of plant genetic loss is halted or slowed substantially, as many as 60,000 plant species roughly 25% of the world's total could be lost by the year 2025, according to the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas.

After many researches, Naoyuki Takahata a Vice President of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Sokendai (2002) came to a following conclusion: “The tempo and mode of environmentally dependent and driven evolution may be associated with gain of new genes, but this can happen only when environments change so slowly as to permit organisms to acquire new genes. Unless otherwise, organisms cannot genetically respond and may become extinct under rapid and dramatic environmental changes. It follows that genetic changes that develop and characterize species specificity must result from some other changes than gain of new genes in the genome. It is therefore hypothesized that such genomic changes are likely alternations of _expression of existing genes and, in an extreme case, loss of genes that are no longer indispensable under new environments”.

In one other article it was described that gaining of new genes is hardly possible in any way. Therefore, what is left is only gene degradation and gene loss. This is confirmed also by Jonathan Eisen of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) who said: "There are hundreds if not thousands of studies saying that gene loss is very common, particularly among small genomes”.

An example: Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, in collaboration with colleagues in Cambridge, UK, Madison and Berlin, compared the genome sequence of pertussis with those of Bordetella bronchiseptica, which causes minor respiratory tract ailments in a wide range of animals and is the presumed ancestor of B. pertussis, and B. parapertussis, a close relative that infects only humans and sheep, and is a less common cause of whooping cough.

The comparisons suggest that it is loss of genes by B. pertussis and B. parapertussis, rather than gain of genes by B. bronchiseptica, that underlies the restricted host range of the human pathogens…the bacterium has not gained genes making it more virulent, but appears to have lost factors that used to control its virulence…it is still responsible for more than 250 000 deaths a year.

All the usual "proofs" for evolution (fruit fly mutations, moths changing color in England, bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics, etc.) is actually an example of genetic "devolution" -- i.e., genetic information muting in a harmful way to the organism, or information simply getting lost.

Gene Loss as the Primary Cause of Aging

As stated by the scientists in this article (pg.298),

".... genetic damage (particularly gene loss) is almost certainly a (or probably the ) central cause of aging."

The first studies on human DNA dosage in regards to age indicated a very substantial loss of DNA from the human tissue as a function of age (Johnson et al., 1975). This study was subsequently expanded to include 29 individual human hearts. The previous results were again validated (Strehler et al., 1979a). The evidence indicates that 0.5% of the original amount of DNA is lost per year from the human heart. An even greater loss of DNA (0.7%) was then demonstrated in two separate regions of the human brain (hippocampus and sensori-motor cortes). Moreover, the rate of loss per year is 5-7 times more rapid from dogs' tissues than it is from the same human tissues. This number is very similar to the ratio of the maximum longevities of these two species (120 years vs. 20 years, a 6/1 ratio) - which implies that this loss limits the maximum lifespan of both species.

Comparison of Lifespan, Functional Loss and DNA Loss Humans vs. Dogs

Tissue Species DNA Loss

Lymphocytes Man 0.45% per year

Brain -- SS Cortex Man 0.79% per year

Brain -- Hippocampus Man 0.80% per year

Heart Muscle Man 0.60% per year

Brain Dog 2.10% per year

Muscle Dog 3.20% per year

Heart Muscle Dog 3.30% per year

Average DNA Loss Man 0.61% per year

Average DNA Loss Dog 2.87% per year

Studies of humans after age 30, show the rate of DNA loss to be at about 0.97% per year.

In conclusion, we gave here a few examples of genetic degeneration and gene loss that confirm the Vedic viewpoint of the species becoming degenerated. Thus, the Vedic concept of devolution is also found in discoveries of science.

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