New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random

New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random: "When the researchers measured changes in 40 defined characteristics of the nematodes’ sexual organs (including cell division patterns and the formation of specific cells), they found that most were uniform in direction, with the main mechanism for the development favoring a natural selection of successful traits, the researchers said.

'Since random development would not create such unifying trends, we concluded that the observed development was deterministic, not random,' said Professor Benjamin Podbilewicz from the Technion Faculty of Biology."

This article seems hard to validate not having seen the whole article.

The idea of random mutation naturally leads to the conclusions that there should be an uniform chance of productive and non-productive change as a species evolves. 50% have shorter tentacles (positive) and 50% have longer tentacles per generation (negative). The productive change is selected for and the non-productive change is selected against. However, if the genetic offspring show that productive change is more common than non-productive change (70% have longer tentacles and 30% have shorter tentacles before natural selection has a chance to act), then that suggests a mechanism or selection criteria is working much before natural selection.

Environment Directly Affects Reptile Gender

I understand that in the case of reptiles, gender is determined by temperature. How does this work with respect to X and Y chromosomes? Does temperature change Xs to Ys and/or vice versa?: Scientific American: "In temperature-dependent sex determination, however, it is the environmental temperature during a critical period of embryonic development that determines whether an egg develops as male or female. This thermosensitive period occurs after the egg has been laid, so sex determination in these reptiles is at the mercy of the ambient conditions affecting egg clutches in nests. For example, in many turtle species, eggs from cooler nests hatch as all males, and eggs from warmer nests hatch as all females. In crocodilian species—the most studied of which is the American alligator—both low and high temperatures result in females and intermediate temperatures select for males."

Radiation Causes Evolution of New Plants

Science Journal Spring 2007 | Feature Story | Genetically Modified Foods: "Another way to make seedless fruits is by using radiation to cause mutations. The Rio Red, a popular red grapefruit, was created by exposing grapefruit buds to thermal neutron radiation at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1968. Other notable successes of mutation breeding include Creso, the most popular variety of durum wheat used for making pasta in Italy; Calrose 76, a high-yielding California rice; Golden Promise barley, a fine-quality malt used in specialty beers; and some 200 varieties of bread wheat grown around the world."

Radiation has been used to increase this rate of mutation in crops. The interesting question is -- are the mutations introduced by radiation truly "random" or are there structures and mechanisms that have evolved to control how radiation affects rate and type of mutation? If those structures do exist, then changes in the environment can directly change the rate of "stable" mutation. Mutation may not be entirely "random" after all, but instead a response to environmental change by an intricately evolved mechanism.

More Evidence of Environmental Factors Influencing Evolution

Air pollution causes sperm mutations

"The mice, reared in cages kept in a shed downwind of two steel mills and a busy highway in a Canadian city, showed a host of genetic changes compared to similarly housed mice breathing filtered air. DNA in the sperm of the mice in the polluted area contained 60% more mutations, had more strand breaks, and had more bases that had been chemically modified via the addition of a methyl group. That modification, called DNA methylation, can affect whether a gene is expressed."

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080113/full/news.2008.439.html