Wednesday 20 July 2011

Happy Birthday Gregor Mendel-the Christian monk who founded the science of genetics

I am sure Google won't mind me posting this doodle in celebration of the monk with the peas or pasting a bit from them celebrating the great, but humble, man.

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Had it not been for a bunch of peas on the Google homepage, chances are you wouldn't have even heard of Gregor Mendel least of all remember his (189th) birthday.

Mendel as google will tell you was an Austrian botanist and monk and is considered as the father of genetics.

Mendel was born Johann in Heinzendorf, Austria (it is presently part of the Czech Pepublic) and got the name Gregor after he joined a monastery of the Augustinian order.

In Vienna, he studied physics and mathematics as also the anatomy and physiology of plants.

It was however in a monastery in Brunn that he began his experiments with plant hybridisation with the pea plant.

His findings enabled him to formulate the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment. These laws would later be known as Mendel's Laws of Inheritance.

Soon after he turned his attention to honeybees and even as his peers and contemporaries were less than welcoming of his work, Mendel himself did little or nothing to publicise his works.

Further his responsibilities in the order left him little or no time to pursue his scientific goals.

On January 6, 1884 Mendel died aged 61, his work largely gone unrecognised.

The following century however was more kind and his work got the recognition it truly deserved and Mendel was acknowledged as the father of genetics.
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Thankfully, nobody had told Gregor Mendel that science and religion were supposed to be eternal opposites, enemies locked in a death struggle which only one could win. In fact, this doctrine is quite recent. And evidently false, at least in the case of the Christian faith which rests on sound historical foundations including multiple fulfilled prophecies, miracles and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Many great scientists have seen no contraditions between a deeply held traditional Christian faith and honest empirical science.

It has been suggested (I say no more that that) that Mendel's work was hushed up during Darwin's lifetime as it was not at all supportive of Darwinianism, which a powerful anti-Christian movement wanted to foist on the world despite the lack of evidence. Mendelian inheritance is a good model for understanding allele frequency variability, which fits in well with Darwin's actual observations concerning variations and natural selection, but also demonstrates predictable limits on variation, which is very bad for Darwin's imagined common descent. Darwin's observations were often very good, its his conclusions which were rubbish. Unlike Mendel, he allowed his imagination to run away with him and made conclusions which ran way beyond his evidence. Also, unlike Mendel, he had a powerful movement (including many revolutionaries and atheists) who wanted his theory to be true.

Anything which demonstrates limits to variation is not good for Darwinism, which depends on the belief that variation is unlimited. Mendels peas remained peas. Darwin's speculation that variations could add up to eventually produce entirely different plants and animals is not supported by empirical observation, which shows clear limits to the varaibility seen within species. Dogs always dogs, grass always grass, carp always carp, and so on.

Happy birthday Gregor. See you.

4 comments:

  1. Anything which demonstrates limits to variation is not good for Darwinism, which depends on the belief that variation is unlimited. Mendels peas remained peas. Darwin's speculation that variations could add up to eventually produce entirely different plants and animals is not supported by empirical observation, which shows clear limits to the varaibility seen within species.

    LOL! What a silly claim! Mendel's short term experiments in crossbreeding specific traits didn't demonstrate a limit to genetic variation any more than riding your bike down to the corner pub demonstrats riding long distances like the Tour de France is impossible.

    Dogs always dogs, grass always grass, carp always carp, and so on.

    Are wolves dogs? How about foxes? How about jackals?

    Here is the phylogenetic tree of canid relatedness and estimated time of divergence base on detailed genetic studies.

    Genome sequence, comparative analysis and haplotype structure of the domestic dog

    Canid Phylogenetic Tree

    Do you have a better explanation for the empirical genetic evidence showing the relationships?

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  2. Darwin's speculation that variations could add up to eventually produce entirely different plants and animals is not supported by empirical observation, which shows clear limits to the varaibility seen within species.

    Maybe you could give me your explanation for the Hawaiian Silversword alliance. From Wiki:

    "Silversword alliance refers to an adaptive radiation of over 30 species in the composite or sunflower family, Asteraceae. The group is endemic to Hawaiʻi, and is derived from a single immigrant to the islands.

    The silversword alliance is named for its most famous and visually striking members, the silverswords. There are three species of silverswords and two greenswords in the genus Argyroxiphium, confined to the islands of Maui and Hawaiʻi, and two species of Wilkesia (iliau) on Kauaʻi. The bulk of the species are placed in the genus Dubautia, which is widespread on all the main islands.

    The genus Dubautia contains a wide variety of life-forms, including cushion plants, shrubs, trees, and lianas."

    The diverse morphologies of Hawaiian Silverswords includes trees, shrubs, vines, palm-like stalked plants, aloe-like rosettes, and low-growing ground-cover.

    Silversword morphologies

    Genetic testing has confirmed the current amazing diversity all arose from a single ancestral species beginning approx. 5 million years ago:

    Age and rate of diversification of the Hawaiian Silversword alliance (Compositae)

    I'll gladly listen to your explanation for the Silversword empirically observed data. Do you have one?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Thorton,
      Thank you for your thoughts. Will you please listen to mine for a minute?
      I'm just wondering where the evidence is for the evolution. I see a bit of results on your sources (thank you for those) but can you please explain to me the procedure and whatever else in layman's terms. I would appreciate that. Regarding Mendel's experiments though:
      Mendel observed pea plants over a period of eight years during which he recognized these four principles (in today's words):
      -1.The traits of an organism are determined by it's genes.

      -2.Each organism has two alleles (one of a pair of genes that occupies the same position as homologous chromosomes[a trait]) that make up one genotype (the result of the parents two combined traits) for a given trait.

      -3. In sexual reproduction, each parent contributes only one of it's alleles to it's offspring.

      -4.In each genotype, there is a dominant allele.


      I'm going to focus on the second principle. Mendel figured from his experiments that a plant that 'bred true' would breed its own characteristics further down the line and that after eight years these principles didn't change and prove to him one thing: even though a plant would have two traits it would not mix them but use the dominant one even though it would have the other trait. however the unused traits in that generation would be used in the next if the plant was bred with itself.
      WHATEVER THE PLANT STARTED WITH IS WHATEVER THE PLANT ENDED WITH.


      However, I'm not trying to insult you or even focus on any of this stuff to much. I'm more worried about the salvation of many, and I can see that your lost right now. Please take a minute to look around you and consider how anything you see could be here without a God who created it. If you argue the point of the Big Bang you can see obvious flaw in the official argument (not actually an explosion, but an outward movement of particles at the speed of thousands of times the speed of) two obvious flaws: anything moving faster than the speed of light dematerializes, and there would have to be infinite dimension warps with different laws of physics in order to have any orbital rotation. I'm not trying to insult you, I just want your eyes to be opened to the truth. Please consider reading this article http://www.therebelution.com/The_Room.pdf
      I want you to know this, Jesus Christ died and rose from the grave so that YOU may be saved. It's hard to start living for Him and following Him and knowing Him, but once you truly come to Him Heart mind and soul He will show you the truth and there will be nothing else you care about anymore. He loves you and cannot wait to save you. He asks for allot... but He give allot more. nothing is more exciting than living a life for Him. Don't quit don't stop never leave Him. It doesn't matter if you can't keep on going or can't make something happen, 'cause it's not about what you can do, it's about what He can do. It sounds boring. It sounds scary. It sounds pointless, but when you let Him take control, you realize your having the time of your life and you never want to stop. Here's the best part once you start, he'll keep on going for you, for ETERNITY! He has the infinite power to carry your sins to Hell and back by being the ultimate atoning sacrifice for your sins. He rose from the dead with purity and removed any dirt from you. HE'S WILLING TO DO IT AGAIN FOR YOU BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING. All you have to do is let Him take control and follow Him, but He provides that and will keep you going on Him when there's nothing left. I wish you could see how excited I am as I'm typing this so that you may see the testimony in me to the joys that Christ brings.

      Delete
  3. Happy Birthday Mendel!

    ReplyDelete

feel free to comment, good manners and lucidity are appreciated.