…But, until recently, scientists had never really tested the biological law \u2014 first proposed in 1905 \u2014 that evolution couldn\u2019t run in reverse. No one expects whole organisms to mutate back into their evolutionary antecedents. But what about the proteins we\u2019re made up of? Under the right circumstances, can they find their way back in time? <\/span> Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>> Can evolution run backward? Scientists say no. …But, until recently, scientists had never really tested the biological law \u2014 first proposed in 1905 \u2014 that evolution couldn\u2019t run in reverse. No one expects whole organisms to mutate back into their evolutionary antecedents. But what about the proteins we\u2019re made up of? Under the right circumstances, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The answer, it turns out, is no.<\/span>
A University of Oregon research team has tried, in essence, to return a protein \u2014 called a glucocorticoid receptor \u2014 to one of its ancestral states by reversing the mutations that produced the modern version of the receptor. They discovered that the mutations happened in two stages \u2014 two separate groups of mutations. The trouble, they report in the current issue of Nature, was that each separate cluster of mutations produced a dead receptor, no matter which one was chosen first. In other words, there was no way the protein could select a preferable state that would lead it, in nature, toward its ancestral form. <\/span>
Evolution opens gateways into the future. But it appears to close them \u2014 firmly \u2014 behind it as well.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But sometimes scientists are just plain wrong. Devolution does exist, and here\u2019s the proof!![\"bushidiot\"](\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202009\/IsThereDevolution_1624\/bushidiot.jpg\" "\\"bushidiot\\"")
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