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Natural Selection Lieb, M.D., Julian Jul 27, 2006

NATURAL SELECTION: A PROPERTY OF PROSTAGLANDINS
Julian Lieb, M.D
julianlieb@aol.com

In 1930 obstetrician Raphael Kurzrok noted that out of dozens of attempts at artificial insemination, only two were probably successful. In a number of cases he observed that when 0.5 ml of semen was injected into the uterine cavity, the semen was promptly expelled. A similar quantity of Ringer's solution similarly injected was invariably retained. The patient always had the same reaction, apparently independent of the phase of the menstrual cycle.1

Kurzrok and colleague Charles Lieb suspended strips of uterine muscle in 100 ml of warm, oxygenated Ringer’s solution, to which they added 1 ml of warm semen. They write: "The same uterus may react to one semen by contracting; to another by relaxation. The same semen may contract one uterus and relax another. From this we may draw the tentative conclusions that certain types of sterility are sometimes due to the female, sometimes to the male. A study of the history of the patients from whom the uterine strips were obtained throws an interesting light on our experiments. The uteri from the patients who give a history of successful pregnancy responded to fresh semen by relaxation, while uteri from women who gave a history of complete or long-standing sterility were always stimulated by semen."1 One may conclude that there are molecules in semen and their uterine receptors that differentiate between fertility and infertility.

These molecules are now known to be prostaglandins.2 Reproduction and survival are the cornerstones of natural selection, and prostaglandins are ubiquitous in both.3,4 As immunoregulators,4 prostaglandins have an essential role in survival by preserving health or, paradoxically, inducing defective immunity,4 autoimmunity,5 and cancer.6 Kurzrok and Lieb's experiment suggests that natural selection is a paradoxical property of prostaglandins.7,8

References

1. Kurzrok R., Lieb C. Biochemical studies of human semen. II Action of semen on the human uterus. Proc Soc Exp Biol Med (1930) 28:268-272
2. Oates J. The 1982 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine. Science 218: 756-768
3. Craig, G.M. Prostaglandins in reproductive physiology. Postgrad Med J (1975) 51: 74-78
4. Fulton A., Levy J. The possible role of prostaglandins in mediating immune suppression by nonspecific T suppressor cells. Cell Immunol (1980) 52:29-37
5. Baliff B., Mincek N., Barratt J., et al. Interaction of cyclooxygenases with apoptosis-and autoimmunity-associated protein. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (1996) 93: 5544-5549
6. Murata H., Kawano S., Tsuji S., et al. Cyclooxygenase-2 over expression enhances lymphatic invasion and metastasis in human gastric carcinoma. Am J Gastroenterol (1999) 94(2): 451-455
7. Lieb, J. Eicosanoids: the molecules of evolution. Med Hypoth (2001) 56(6), 686-693
8 . Lieb, J. An experiment on infertility illuminates prostaglandins in natural selection. Med Hypoth (2004) 63, 370

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? Ryan Jul 29, 2006

I feel there is a great deal of circular reasoning in this article. Observational science and historical science are not the same thing. The Cambrian Explosion; where is all the fossil evidence for evolution.
How many thousands of generations of evolution and all the fossils of the so-called "links" of human evolution can fit in a small box. Who is misinterpreting data? Open your mind. Look objectively at the evidence as a whole. You have a great deal of faith in what you believe because your facts (data) were severely lacking.
Before the universe was nothing, not a quantum vacumn...nothing...absolute nothing. "Anything that exists has a cause that has brought it into being". Stop being so obstinate.

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My anti-creation website Casarez, Chris Jul 29, 2006

i am putting together a case study of creationists and the flaws in their arguments. Please include a link. I will certainly include TalkReason when I build my link list. the site is unimpressive right now but that will change.

www.roiscience.com

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Msg for James Downard Hinkle, John Jul 28, 2006

This is my first venture into talkreason.org, and I just finished reading your "appraisals" of Ann "Windbag" Coulter's views on evolution.

I just gotta say, you slay me! You truly have a gift to fisk with wit. (I don't know if "fisk" is a real word, but it's used by Josh Marshall at talkingpointsmemo.com).

Thanks for the entertaining and educational read.

Regards,

John Hinkle

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Secondary Addiction Part III: Ann Coulter on Evolution

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Coutler and bird evolution Ichneumon Jul 27, 2006

DAMN that was good... And so are your installments #1 and #2. I eagerly await the rest.

A couple of trivial comments...

You write:
"These earliest birds were quite small, and illustrate some deeper implications for avian biology and ancestry: they could only fly by trading off the energy their theropod cousins had devoted directly to growth, Schweitzer & Marshall (2001, 323-325)."

I haven't read the cited paper, but I can think of some other factors driving the small size of the early birds beyond "trading off on the energy" devoted to growth. The first is that an early imperfect flier would obviously be more effective at remaining aloft (and/or surviving crashes) at a lighter weight (and thus smaller body size). The second is after hatching that modern birds "grow into" their feathers at an incredible rate -- I've raised parrots and even the largest species are full-grown in mere weeks. The necessity for this growth spurt appears to be related to "growing into their feathers", since even their first "coat" of feathers are full-sized. If their bodies didn't achieve full size quickly, the young bird would have a hard time flying with full-grown feathers (and conversely, if they grew a set of "baby feathers" first, their growing bodies would eventually leave them with undersized feathers until the next full moult, also an impediment to flight). So the evolved solution is to sprout full-sized feathers from the start, and grow into them as soon as possible. All of this is less of a make-or-break issue for a small-bodied bird, however, and I can envision that the early birds, before the "grow like a weed" process was made available, got around the feather/body match problem by reducing their overall size.

Near the end of your piece you remark on how "It took many pages to explain why Coulter's single paragraph was wrong." I call this the "demonstrating what huge volumes of scientific evidence the creationists left out of their cartoon versions" effect. It takes very little space to say something false. It takes a lot more to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and to document and support the validity of it.

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Secondary Addiction Part III: Ann Coulter on Evolution

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