When the topic of evolution arises in these forums, one of the rebuttals that always arises is the contention that evolution sometimes happens too quickly to happen just by chance. In other words, that changes happen faster than mathematical probabilities would predict. Creationists view this as evidence that Darwin's theory therefore cannot be correct, and that it has to be due to the presence of a "designer".
As is common knowledge, science is known to be tentative. That is, it changes as new discoveries, fact and evidence are uncovered. Darwin's theory was set forth late in the 19th century. He proposed without even knowledge of basic Mendelian genetics as a mechanism for transmission of heritable traits. In the time between Darwin and now, a newer version of evolution was formulated to incorporate newer understandings in science as science advanced. This newer version was called the Modern Synthesis.
The Modern Synthesis was put forth in the 1940's, and has remained unchanged since then. Scientists are now saying that even the Modern Synthesis needs to be expanded to reflect increased understanding of the mechanism of evolution derived from newer fields such as genomics, molecular bio, developmental bio and systems biology. They are calling this the Extended Synthesis to denote that it doesn't change the Modern Synthesis, but adds to it.
Recent evidence shows that there are newly discovered factors that allow species to change faster than predicted via mathematical probabilities. This directly addresses creationists contention that evolution CAN'T happen that fast, so it would have to be incorrect. Some of the new evidence includes:
1. Proteins that inhibit ribosomes from receiving the signal of where to stop when reading RNA during translation. That is the processes where proteins are made. This causes the ribosome to read further along the RNA strand than it should, thus expressing previously unexpressed genes. This leads to new physical traits being shown in individuals of that species.
2. Evidence that physical and chemical factors play a larger role during embryonic development than previously thought. In other words, once DNA is read and development begins, things like chemicals, temperature, etc can influence the final physical appearance of the individual. An example would be during pigmentation. If a chemical or physical factor happens as pigment is being distributed, the individual may be born with spots instead of stripes and therefore subject to different natural selection pressures.
3. Things like diet may have more influence than previously thought. The vitamins and minerals present in the diet of the mother can affect changes in DNA. One of those changes is in methylation of DNA. That is how the DNA strand is wrapped around certain proteins. That affects how the DNA is read during translation. Scientist have discovered that the mother's intake of folic acid (part of her diet) affects how the DNA is methylated.
These are just some of the newer findings. It has always been my contention that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for evolution is the fact that even with our lightning fast advancements in science in the 150 years or so since Darwin first set forth his theory, there has been no evidence found yet that contradicts evolution. This is another example of that coming into play. Our newer findings are again supporting evolutionary theory, and taking away another argument that creationists have tried to use to discredit it. Like I say, evolution is like a jigsaw puzzle with some missing pieces. Those missing pieces make the picture still incomplete. Yet just because the pieces are currently missing, doesn't mean they don't exist...merely that they haven't been found. We are finding more and more of the pieces of the evolutionary puzzle....and the picture is becoming clearer as we do.
Link: http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/56251/
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God Bless Evolution.
