Dear Oliver,

You correctly asserted the eucarya organisms can be multicellular. However, that is not what differentiates eucarya from procarya. In asserting that the difference is trivial you ignore the main differences between eucarya and procarya. Procarya have both a cell wall and a cell membrane.Eucarya have only a membrane. Eucarya cells have a nucleus in which DNA are enclosed. Procarya do not have a nucleus.The flagellum driving procarya differs in several features from the undulipodium driving the eucarya.

The five kingdom scheme divides life into bacteria, Protoctista (nucleated microorganisms), plants, animals and fungi. Whatever scheme one chooses (3 or 5) is a matter of preference. My particular interest at this time is fungi. See http://www.qms.asn.au/index.html for the Queensland Mycological Society website. Our next meeting is Tuesday, 8 June, 2010 from 7:00 - 9:00 pm. at the FM Bailey room, Queensland Herbarium,Mt Coot-tha, Brisbane. Anybody on the thread will be welcome to hear John Wrench talk about "Taxonomic Etymology".

David f,

There is no doubt that genetic mutations do occur, although the vast majority of genetic mutations disadvantage an organism, rather than improve its chances of survival.

As more discoveries are made about the cell, it does appear that most cells have not developed their complete functionality because of genetic mutations.

It is interesting that organizations such as NASA currently sterilise probes and spacecraft before they land on moons, asteroids and other planets. This is done to ensure that microbes from Earth do not somehow affect those other celestial bodies. The opposite may be possible in the future, where life forms are created on Earth and then seeded onto celestial bodies, so as to spread life. Those life forms would have to be specially designed to enable them to survive in their environment.

The spreading of life in this way does seem ethical, as it would be rather selfish to keep it on our planet if there is the possibility to spread life elsewhere.

Maybe there will be a debate in future years as to whether or not to seed some other celestial body.

Dan
"Pelican,
You say that you cannot argue with faith based reasoning. So why start now?"

I don't really know.

Everytime a religious thread comes up I can't help myself even after deciding at some point (based on past experience) there is no point in the same old circular arguments, that I won't involve myself.

Perhaps I have some faith myself that reason will one day prevail. :)

Pelican

'Perhaps I have some faith myself that reason will one day prevail. :)'

If you believe in evolution then you certainly have plenty of faith.

Peli

>> Perhaps I have some faith myself that reason will one day prevail. <<

Pigs are already lining up on the tarmac :)

Here's one reason that's going to set the pigs flying:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1190719

Here's another cat for the pidgeons ... or, a question for OLO's irreducible complex entity: What if your 'Designer' designed evolution?

Quanda,
Is it ID to create a new bacterium, or evolution by genetic mutation?

I would think ID.

However, I wonder if this type of thing has actually been done before, (but we are not aware of when, or where it occurred).