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13

Life
Is Ultimate Art

13.1

Life
and Its Diversity:Ultimate Art or Ultimate Accident?

Life
as Ultimate Art

The sentence, “O you, who look on this
our machine, do not be sad that with others you are fated to die, but rejoice
that our Creator has endowed us with such an excellent instrument as the
intellect” was first spoken by what great scientist/philosopher?

Life
as Ultimate Accident

What great observation did Charles
Darwin make from nature as a result of his reading and voyage around the
world?

List some organisms observed by
Charles Darwin while reading and voyaging the world.

Charles Darwin’s view of the species
was that populations of a species continually experienced new ____________
and continually became more ____________.

Charles Darwin believed that whole new
species originated as a result of populations of the same species reproducing
in two distinct, separate ____________ and responding to those ____________
in different ways.

Complete the following sentence
describing how Darwin interpreted his observations of nature:Individuals
within populations____________ with each other for limited ____________; some
of these individuals will ____________ better than others.

List 7 features of Enlightenment
thinking.

The term ____________ represents a
predictive theory of how a species might change with time, whereas the term ____________
assumes that nature can create whole new structures and organisms.

13.2

Can
Life Originate without Artistry?

Evolution’s
First Goal:The Smallest Cell

Compare Mycoplasma genitalium’s physical size with that of E. coli.

Compare Mycoplasma genitalium’s genome size (number of genes) with that
of E. coli.

How was Mycoplasma genitalium discovered and
what sorts of infection does it cause in humans?

Evolution’s
Starting Materials:Small Geochemicals

Some have speculated that the origin
of life occurred at geothermal vents.What is the problem with the amino acids
formed near these vents?

Evolution’s
Highest Hurdle:Creating and Storing Information

Some scholars have viewed RNA as the
original site of information storage in the primitive cell.One advantage of
this view is that RNA can both store____________ and can act catalytically
like a(n) ____________.

Could RNA have been the original site
of information storage in the primitive cell? List some difficulties with
this possibility.

One problem associated with evolving a
system in which RNA bases code for ____________ acids is that the correct
bonding of amino acids to tRNAs requires ____________ catalysis—mature
proteins are needed to begin making the first proteins.

Evolution’s
Final Challenge:Spatial Ordering of Biological Activity

StateFrancis
Crick’s theory of directed panspermia.

13.3

Can
Life’s Diversity Increase without Artistry?

The Gap to Be
Bridged:Invention of Novel Complex Structures

Describe 1 popular evolutionary model
for the origin of flight in vertebrates.Fliers must have evolved from
non-fliers that ____________ and then glided down from ____________.

List the names of some component
structures of a primary flight feather.

Given its precise shape, what is the
role of the barbule in the primary flight feather?

How does preening behavior enable a
bird to continue to fly successfully?

During the formation of a feather, a
tube-like ____________ appears as a result of early induction events within
the dermal layer of the wing surface.

What is a basic evolutionary advance
needed to convert a down-like feather into a primary flight feather?The
feather’s ____________ must be ____________ and reshaped to help support the
bird’s weight.

Bridging the
Gap I:Random Mutations in Primitive Feather Keratinocytes

What are some new mutations needed to
generate appropriate structures for flight feathers?(A mutation that matches
barbule ____________ to the space ____________ feather barbs.)

Bridging the
Gap II:Natural Selection in Primitive Feather Keratinocytes

Distinguish the roles of mutation and
natural selection in developing a better organism.Mutation ____________ the
genes, and natural selection ____________ the genes.

Natural selection is an “expensive”
process.Explain what this means in terms of the lives of the members of the
population in which the selection is occurring.

In what sort of environmental
situation is natural selection particularly limited in its effectiveness in
preserving new favorable mutations?

Define the phrase “selection pressure.”

“Natural selection is cybernetically
blind.”It does not ____________ the structural hierarchies it is required to
construct.

Evaluation of
the Naturalistic Hypothesis

Natural selection is unable to “see” a
new useful biological function while protecting a different existing
function.Is this a fair statement evaluating the naturalistic hypothesis?If
not, what is a better one?

13.5

What
Is the Product and Value of Evolution?

Mutations
Harmful, Neutral, and Helpful

How does the design theorist arrive at
the conclusion that most mutations occurring today are harmful?What does he
or she assume to be true of the living thing in which the mutations are
occurring?

The naturalist also comes to the
conclusion that most mutations occurring today are harmful because the
naturalist and the theist both assume that by now, the living thing is a
collection of highly inter-related, well “crafted” systems.So, most mutations
occurring today would not contribute to the process of ____________.

List 3 broad classes of mutations,
each of which affects the evolutionary process differently.

Which class of mutations accumulate
silently in the DNA, having no obvious effect on one’s ability to reproduce?

How would a design theorist define a
beneficial mutation?

What is a Darwinist’s definition of a
beneficial mutation?

What Does
Nature Select?

What does stabilizing selection do
among individuals of a population?

Which sort of selection can eliminate
rare individuals whose sexuality is intermediate between male and female?

Directional selection moves a
population phenotypically in a new ____________.

Which sort of selection has been used
to generate a small increase in the number of bristles on the thorax of
flies?

What problem arises when you desire to
see if directional selection could move a population of primitive organisms
toward long-term change?

What problem arises when you desire to
see if directional selection could move a population of modern,
internally-integrated organisms toward long-term change?(A seemingly good
change in one direction, ____________.)

Adding in
Revealed Truth

In the early pages of the Genesis record,
how might the first of three stages of life history best be described?(Note
the three vertical red arrows in Figure 13.63.)

Of the three stages of life history
implied in the early pages of the Genesis record, which one appears least
likely to involve any biological change in populations with time?

How might the third stage of life
history implied in the early pages of the Genesis record best be described?

What phrase does Romans 8 use to
describe modern living organisms?