Could a life form that was designed / engineered be differentiated from a life form that evolved over thousands or millions of years. Would it stand out immediately if you examined it’s DNA or physical structure or would it be extremely difficult to tell one from another.

If it looked like this you’d have a clue…..

Postpocelipse said:

If it looked like this you’d have a clue…..

Yeah that is rather obvious, but something subtle
I always thought people who claim humans were designed by god were clutching at straws because if we were designed by a supreme being it didn’t do a very good job unless that was also by design.

I’d assume anything we humans designed at this point in time would be obvious because at the moment its like a cut/copy paste type DNA manipulation

• Could a life form that was designed / engineered be differentiated from a life form that evolved over thousands or millions of years.

Multi-Pass…

furious said:

• Could a life form that was designed / engineered be differentiated from a life form that evolved over thousands or millions of years.

Multi-Pass…

Multi-Pass ?

• Multi-Pass ?

Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat

Cymek said:

Could a life form that was designed / engineered be differentiated from a life form that evolved over thousands or millions of years. Would it stand out immediately if you examined it’s DNA or physical structure or would it be extremely difficult to tell one from another.

Identification systems are currently able to physically separate closely related species, let alone different families, genera, etc. Therefore systematic examination should be able to ID the above differences and place the engineered life-form into the same system. There are cases where it has been impossible to separate species, as their differences are not great enough, or too variable, then DNA examination is necessary to show their relationship and if sufficiently different, describe a new species. Presumably the new life-form would also have DNA and could also be classified by that method should physical appearance could not distinguish it from other life-forms.

Cymek said:

Could a life form that was designed / engineered be differentiated from a life form that evolved over thousands or millions of years. Would it stand out immediately if you examined it’s DNA or physical structure or would it be extremely difficult to tell one from another.

It’s not so easy to answer this question. An artificial life form produced by minor tinkering with an existing life form, such as Monsanto soy, could be mistaken for a natural product. An artificial life form such as the new Venter microorganisms that are produced by radical modification of an existing organism would be immediately distinguishable from a natural one now – because of the large number of simultaneous changes. But its descendants, if any, would be more difficult to odistinguis after a sufficiently long time – tens of millions of years – have passed.

Without DNA sequencing it would be much harder to tell. Transgenic mice that have human genes in their DNA usually look and act just like human mice.

Gene modification would need to be very extensive to change an existing species into something different, otherwise it would remain a mouse that has a few genetic changes, which might not be more variable than normal genetic variation within a species. So no new species, just a modified existing one.

PermeateFree said:

Gene modification would need to be very extensive to change an existing species into something different, otherwise it would remain a mouse that has a few genetic changes, which might not be more variable than normal genetic variation within a species. So no new species, just a modified existing one.

That opens a pandora’s box…..

Postpocelipse said:

PermeateFree said:

So no new species, just a modified existing one.

That opens a pandora’s box…..

It doesn’t take much modification to change an existing species into a new one. You don’t even need to modify any of the genes, just move some important genes from one chromosome to another. If the genes are important enough then they suffice to stop any correct chromosome pairing when sperm and egg combine, and that stops interbreeding between existing and new species.

Interesting question in many ways, but maybe needs engineered qualified.

Do you mean an entirely new organism?

mollwollfumble said:

Postpocelipse said:

PermeateFree said:

So no new species, just a modified existing one.

That opens a pandora’s box…..

It doesn’t take much modification to change an existing species into a new one. You don’t even need to modify any of the genes, just move some important genes from one chromosome to another. If the genes are important enough then they suffice to stop any correct chromosome pairing when sperm and egg combine, and that stops interbreeding between existing and new species.

Many mutant genes just sit there doing nothing unless called upon to assist the animal/plants survival, alternatively, if they are detrimental they may simply die out along with the organism. This is happening all the time with most species, which sometime in the future these mutations will determine its future of evolving into a new species, doing nothing or cause its extinction. There is no set line were one species becomes another, but if it meet certain criteria the current expect will make that determination.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

Postpocelipse said:

That opens a pandora’s box…..

It doesn’t take much modification to change an existing species into a new one. You don’t even need to modify any of the genes, just move some important genes from one chromosome to another. If the genes are important enough then they suffice to stop any correct chromosome pairing when sperm and egg combine, and that stops interbreeding between existing and new species.

Many mutant genes just sit there doing nothing unless called upon to assist the animal/plants survival, alternatively, if they are detrimental they may simply die out along with the organism. This is happening all the time with most species, which sometime in the future these mutations will determine its future of evolving into a new species, doing nothing or cause its extinction. There is no set line were one species becomes another, but if it meet certain criteria the current expect will make that determination.

current expect = current expert (authority).