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Plant Growth and Evolution
| February 5, 2013 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
16 Responses to Plant Growth and Evolution
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Cornelius Hunter posted this:
Well yes, I have wondered about it. In fact I wondered about it 40 years ago, when I was studying botany.
And what did I discover? That auxin mediated growth processes orienting root and stem growth in plants with respect to gravity.
Interesting? Fascinating, actually, and this research appears to help fill in the picture about how the mechanism works.
Does it involve magical, unexplained poofery? Not so much – the auxin family of hormones mediate a lot of plant growth patterns, and their modes of activity are well understood.
Of related interest:
Roots and Microbes: Bringing a Complex Underground Ecology Into the Lab – August 2012
Excerpt: As many as 120 different types of bacteria might reside inside the root of a single plant, Dangl says, and the composition of that community is distinct from the microbial population in the local soil. “We want to know the molecular rules that guide the assembly of a community of microbes on the roots that helps a plant grow. Ecologists see this as a 120-variable problem.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....132440.htm
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Design
Excerpt: The mutual relationship between vascular plants (flowering plants) and arbuscular mycorrihizal fungi (AMF) is the most prevalent known plant symbiosis. Vascular plants provide sites all along their root systems where colonies of AMF can assemble and feed on the nutrients supplied by the plants. In return, the AMF supply phosphorus, nitrogen, and carbon in molecular forms that the vascular plants can readily assimilate. The (overwhelming) challenge for evolutionary models is how to explain by natural means the simultaneous appearance of both vascular plants and AMF.
http://www.reasons.org/Arbuscu.....ngiDesign2
Novel Nitrogen Uptake Design – Oct. 2009
Excerpt: The exceptionality of the snow roots and their nitrogen-capturing machinery, their extraordinarily complex designs, and their optimal efficiency qualifies them as evidence, not for evolution, but rather for supernatural design.
http://www.reasons.org/NovelNitrogenUptakeDesign
Some Trees ‘Farm’ Bacteria to Help Supply Nutrients – July 2010
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....172332.htm
Of somewhat related interest to this topic of ‘roots’:
Electric Bugs: New Microbe Forms Living, Deep-Sea Power Cables – Oct. 24, 2012
Excerpt: The world’s deep seafloors are dark and airless places, but vast swaths may pulse gently with energy conducted through a type of newly discovered bacteria that forms living electrical cables.
The bacteria were first detected in 2010 by researchers perplexed at chemical fluctuations in sediments from the bottom of Aarhus Bay in Denmark. Almost instantaneously linking changing oxygen levels in water with reactions in mud nearly an inch below, the fluctuations occurred too fast to be explained by chemistry.
Only an electrical signal made sense — but no known bacteria could transmit electricity across such comparatively vast distances. Were bacteria the size of humans, the signals would be making a journey 12 miles long.,,,
Seen through an electron microscope, the Desulfobulbaceae — the researchers haven’t yet given them a genus or species name — appear in blue. They link end-to-end, forming filaments nearly an inch in length.,,,
In just one teaspoon of mud, the researchers found a full half-mile of Desulfobulbaceae cable, and it’s not just a Danish phenomenon. Nielsen said other researchers have sent him samples from seafloors around the world, including Tokyo Bay. It’s possible that, at the microbial level, the deep seafloor is humming with current.
With so much electricity being transferred, are other organisms tapping the lines? Might the Desulfobulbaceae be a power source for entire as-yet-unappreciated deep-sea microbial ecologies, which in turn shape some of the planet’s fundamental biogeochemical processes? That’s “an interesting possibility,” said Nielsen,,
,,the Desulfobulbaceae are definitely breaking down iron sulfides and carbonates in deeper sediment, while generating iron oxide and magnesium calcite at the surface, Nielsen said. The latter are important compounds for life in the oceans above, and ultimately on land. If the new Desulfobulbaceae are as widespread and populous as they seem, they could be an important component of life’s deep-time cycles.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscie.....ewall=true
Moreover, the overall principle of long term balanced symbiosis, which is in fact what we have with the overall biogeochemical cycles of the earth, is a very anti-random chance fact which pervades the entire ecology of our planet and points powerfully to the intentional craftsmanship of a Designer:
God’s Creation – Symbiotic (Cooperative) Relationships – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4023110
also of note:
Plants Grow Differently in Zero Gravity
by Marc Lallanilla – 10 December 2012 – with video
Excerpt: Humanity may be a long way from harvesting tomatoes in outer space, but researchers now have a better idea of how plants might grow in such zero gravity conditions.
Researchers from the University of Florida in Gainesville grew seedlings of Arabidopsis thaliana (also called thale cress) on the International Space Station (ISS) to see how the weightless conditions of outer space would affect root growth. Scientists cultivated the plants in specialized growth units and photographed them every six hours; their root patterns were compared with similar plants grown on the ground at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The researchers expected that the roots would grow away from a light source (as they do in soil on the ground), and the ISS experiment confirmed that light acts as a primary determinant in root-growth patterns. But the scientists also measured the diagonal paths or “skewing” of the roots, as well as their “waving,” the undulating wiggles and curves that growing roots normally exhibit as a means of avoiding obstacles like rocks.
Roots apparently don’t need gravity to orient their directional skewing. They’ll grow away from a light source regardless of gravitational forces. Waving, however, is significantly different in outer space, and the ISS roots curved and waved through their growth medium in a subtler pattern than they would have on Earth.
Though plants on Earth do use gravity to help determine their direction of growth, “it is clear that gravity is neither essential for root orientation, nor is it the only factor influencing the patterns of root growth,” wrote lead authors Anna-Lisa Paul and Robert Ferl in the Dec. 2012 issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.
“It seems that other features of the environment are also required to ensure that a root grows away from the seed, thereby enhancing its chances of finding sufficient water and nutrients to ensure its survival.”
http://www.livescience.com/253.....avity.html
OT: The systematic persecution of anyone who does not toe the Darwinian party line in academia is gone over in the following video:
Slaughter of the Dissidents – Dr. Jerry Bergman – video lecture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_ygt_mqzO8
Although I don’t disagree with the substance of the C.H.’s blog post, his use of terms “evolution” and “evolutionists” when suggesting they have problem explaining this or that feature of life is non sequitur.
The proper terms should be Darwinism and Darwinists (hence random mutation+selection as the explanation of the phenomena he is pointing out), since there is nothing intrinsic in the concept of “evolution” that contradicts intelligent hand behind.
For example, technologies, web sites, languages, math and sciences, economies, societies… evolve, yet there is intelligence that drives this evolution.
Hence “evolution” doesn’t contradict or exclude arbitrary level of complexity and foresight needed to achieve it, as C.H. is constrantly trying to suggest via the unwarranted use of the term. It is painful to watch how this seemingly minor terminological misuse pervading his posts, needlessly weakens and invalidates otherwise excellent points and observations he is bringing up.
An Darwinist, on facebook, claimed that this was not a problem because..
To which I responded:
Moreover
Professor Stein states in the preceding video at the 4:47 minute mark;
I like these following examples of irreducible complexity in plants since they are readily easy to see:
Verse and Inspirational videos:
nightlight #4
In the public opinion the term “evolution” has become a short alias for “Darwinian macroevolution of all species from a unique common ancestor by means of random genetic variations and natural selection”.
If you in the street interview 100 persons and ask, “what evolution is?” almost all answer that is “Darwin’s evolution”, almost no person answers “evolution is change” (intelligently or unintelligently driven).
It is so because people are indoctrinated by the school and brainwashed by the propaganda of the mass-media, both of them fully dominated by the Darwinian nomenklatura all over the world.
Actually, I have wondered. Even as far back as grade school. For science class I did a report on “gravitropism” in plants back when I was a kid.
Definitely not an ‘accidental’ process or even a ‘natural’ process in the sense that it just happens.
nightlight @4:
I hear what you’re saying, but as a practical matter I think most people understand how Mr. Hunter is using the word.
“Evolution” has many meanings (something Mr. Hunter is well aware of). And in the press, biology textbooks, the media generally, it is always understood to mean a fully naturalistic and materialistic process that is not directed by any intelligent agent.
Unless the particular discussion is focusing on the different meanings of “evolution” or is focusing on whether some form of evolution might be compatible with design (in other words, unless the context of the discussion specifically requires us to distinguish different meanings of “evolution”), it is generally understood in conversation what is meant. People who support the theory also use it broadly in that sense as well. So for most discussions, for practical purposes and to avoid having to give a lengthy footnote every time the word is used, it is probably adequate — if not linguistically perfect — to just say “evolution.”
timothya claims in post #1:
And if one looks up auxin he finds:
Okie Dokie timothya I’ll bite, without using any magical, unexplained Darwinian poofery, please explain how just one novel protein in all that integrated functional complexity that came to be:
@Eric, niwrad,
people who read these forums aren’t just anybody from the street, but those interested in the subject, those who know the difference.
By using an imprecise, overloaded term “evolution” for “Darwinism” he weakens his points and denies himself access to legitimate supporting evidence. For example, within his terminology, C.H. cannot coherently point out that in every instance of evolution for which the explanation is known, it is always some intelligence that is guiding it.
Hence, it is Darwinists, by insisting on explanation which violates the rule, who need to justify their pattern defying proposal, rather than those who point out the common underlying pattern, the guiding intelligence behind every other known process of evolution.
Evolution is a sign of guiding intelligence at least as much as any of its particular biochemical phenomena is, such as instances of irreducible complexity, specified complexity, …, he is pointing out. E.g. evolution of computers over past decades is at least as indicative of intelligent guidance as some new CPU instruction is, a mere cog of the larger evolution of computer technology. Coming up with a better computer than the previous one requires more intelligence than compoing up with just a small part of the new computer.
Hence, evolution is his strongest ally, not his main enemy as his unfortunate terminology suggests (to those who read these forums).
timothya @ 1:
As a computer programmer for many years, I understand that nothing you see on your computer screen “just happens”. Everything, down to the tiniest pixel that you can see with a 10x loupe, is there because someone designed it that way.
As someone who has worked on cars a bit, I understand that when you press the gas pedal, acceleration doesn’t “just happen”. There are many complex mechanisms and interrelated subsystems under the hood of your car that are designed to do this very thing.
I’m sorry, but you have lost me, Timothy. “I understand how it works, therefore it is not designed” is a non sequitur. The fact that some attribute or function does not “just happen”, but is produced by a complex mechanism, is evidence for design.
timothya:
Funny. Dawkins explains it by reference to who gets the most sunlight. If it weren’t for gravity trees would be as tall as, well, the sun.
timothya:
Ah. So it wasn’t “evolution” that did it.
Esteemed Mung!!! Tim’s as thick as two short planks.
nightlight @11:
Well, I hear you. Might be good for design proponents to try to take back the word “evolution” (like Mung suggested the other day we should take back the word “creationist”). I just can’t get too exercised about Hunter referring to the term in the way that 99% of the population understands it. And Darwinism itself might not be quite the right word either, as it arguably excludes things like chemical evolution and materialistic OOL research that often come under the broad umbrella of “evolution.” So we are left with imperfect words in either case, unless we attach a number of qualifiers every time we utter the word.
See, there is in an interesting example of the word evolution in the most broad and non-specific sense. It is of course perfectly legitimate to use it in this context as you do. Personally, I tend not to use the word “evolution” in such a broad vague sense to refer to the development of technology over time. I think it is too passive and takes away from the actual sense of design work that was involved. But that is just a personal preference.