Posted on 10/08/2008 7:21:40 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
It’s Fun Seeing Evolution Falsified
Oct 8, 2008 — “Mysterious Snippets Of DNA Withstand Eons Of Evolution” is the strange title of an article on Science Daily. Gill Bejerano and Cory McLean from Stanford are wondering why large non-coding sections of DNA are very similar, or “ultraconserved,” from mice to man. Evolutionary theory would expect that non-functional genetic material would mutate more rapidly than genes. Yet for unknown reasons, the ultraconserved segments stay the same throughout the mammal order. Experiments have shown that mice with these sections deleted do just fine. Why would natural selection purify these regions if they are not essential for survival?...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationsafaris.com ...
I won’t be able to really mix it up for a couple more weeks, but I couldn’t pass this one up!
All the best—GGG
That was pretty funny, but even he came around to realize evolution is true.
Humor.
Sure, but I'm stll awaiting repeatable proof.
==evolution is true.
Which sect of evolution is true? Is it the Temple of Darwin sect? Is it the rapidly growing Temple of Lamarck? The Altenberg 16 Sect? Which one? Or our you just committed to evolution in general???
He posted a giggly schoolgirl’s comments under News/Activism and not Bloggers and Personal. When scientist say the don’t understand something, the barbarians hoot and pound their chests and celebrate their superstitions. Nothing new and certainly not news.
??? Call me dumb, but it seems that active genetic material would mutate more rapidly as non-functioning genes as those are dealing with active traits that would show environmental changes, generation after generation..
Let me critique this before the hardcore neo-Darwinists hit the thread:
This does not falsify evolution. It appears to falsify the assumption (shared by both many neo-Darwinists and their most hardened critics) that the now-technical meaning of ‘random’ in ‘random mutation’ is equivalent to the common-sense notion of ‘random’.
The common-sense notion of randomness applied to mutations would have transciption errors occuring with equal likelihood at all points of the genome, due to things like cosmic ray strikes and the like.
The technical meaning given to ‘random’ by evolutionary biologists does not mean or imply this (and it was stupid of them to keep the word because using it provides their critics with a propaganda coup, but I digress) it means that mutations do not occur in anticipation of environmental conditions, and that the mutations that do occur in response to environmental conditions show no bias in favor of adaptive advantage.
Personally, I think the main cause of adaptive changes in various organisms genomes is trancription of genetic code by viruses, which move ‘already field tested’ bits around. And then there’s are reverse transcriptases, but neo-Darwinists don’t like talking about that class of enzymes.
No real comfort here for those of you who think God hand-builds molecular machines. On the other hand, for those of us who think He constructed the biosphere to be the orginal supercomputer running what are now called ‘genetic algorithms’ in unwhitting homage to His handiwork, with overarching instructions to converge on an organism in His image and likeness (too bad we managed to mar that) it’s a rather nice result.
The science one.... the one that states “3rd Grade Science Book”... that one.
And they still want to call themselves ‘scientists!’
As far as I remember, you have DNA transcriptase unzipping the DNA molecule and going through and copying it. Sometimes, the thinking goes, it makes a copying error. But as the entire genome has to be unraveled in this process, I don't think it matters whether that particular part of DNA is active or not in the final product. In a sense, it is all "active" or unraveled when it is being copied. That's mitosis, anyway, and then you have the recombination that goes on in meiosis--but I seem to remember the process being similar.
That's all the way at the beginning of the process, and it happens way before the trait is even expressed in the environment.
I hope I described that right. It's been a long time since I studied this stuff! I need a thorough review. :)
This notion though of segments of DNA in stasis is very important and should be taken seriously. It's important to understand, for instance, why supposedly things like the coelecanth remained so much the same after so much time, whereas other things changed dramatically in the same period. You can argue of course that there was little if any selection pressure on the coelecanth, but shouldn't there at least be some genetic drift, especially in a small population?
Apparently some people have a very low threshold of entertainment.
Reverse transcriptase??! Now this is something I need to hear about! Do tell.
"The true function of these regions remains a mystery, but it's clear that the genome really does need and use them," said Gill Bejerano, PhD, assistant professor of developmental biology and of computer science. In fact, these so-called "ultraconserved" regions are about 300 times less likely than other regions of the genome to be lost during mammalian evolution, according to research from Bejerano and graduate student Cory McLean.
Although some of the ultraconserved regions, which were first identified by Bejerano in 2004, are involved in the regulation of the expression of neighboring genes, previous research has shown that mice missing each of four regions seem perfectly normal.
"It's very surprising that none of the four has any observable phenotype," said Bejerano. "In some ways it just doesn't make sense."
When this discovery came out several years ago, the argument given at the time was, ... "So what?" It is abundantly evident that you can't sweep problems under the rug. What is in contention here is that there is apparently no phenotype connection to the highly conserved genotype. Darwin necessitates an intimate connection between the two.
==The science one.... the one that states “3rd Grade Science Book”... that one.
Again, which sect of evolution do you belong to? The Temple of Darwin? The neo-Lamarckian sect? The Altenberg 16 sect? Or do you place your faith in Evolution no matter which sect is leading the pack???
If they would just admit that they are practicing materialist religion, everything would be fine!
Excellent point. Indeed, what they are finding out is that genes produce the basic proteins, whereas the protein folding that is so crucial to phenotype is largely carried out by epigenetic factors that operate above or outside of the genes themselves. This discovery will ultimately deliver the deathblow to the neo-Darwinian synthesis IMHO.
Thanks for the ping!
Sorry, none of this validates your particular religious beliefs.
If the entire theory of evolution were to be falsified tomorrow, creationists would not be one step closer to documenting that their beliefs are accurate. For that you need evidence.
A transcriptase is an enzyme that acts to copy strings of DNA into correponding strings of RNA. A reverse transcriptase is an enzyme that copies strings of RNA into corresponding strings of DNA.
There are known examples, if I recall correctly, functioning in immune system response in some organisms.
What is entirely unclear is whether reverse transcriptases ever implement Lamarkian evolution at a molecular level. To do so, the reverse transcriptase would have to transcribe information from RNA into the genome of germ cells or precursor cells to germ cells. This has never been observed.
Still, the existence of such enzymes falsify dogma that the DNA -> RNA -> proteins -> phenotype sequence is unidirectional.
You know, my ecology prof way back when told me that he had done some research and came across some evidence (I can't remember the particulars unfortunately) that showed some kind of Lamarckian effect, where the environment was having an impact on the genome. Of course, he was criticized by some of his peers for daring to suggest it. He was pretty miffed the idea didn't at least get a fair hearing.
Thanks for the info. I knew about transcriptase but I didn't remember ever hearing of it working in reverse. Would make sense though!
“It” (transcriptase) doesn’t work in reverse. There are other enzymes that copy the information the other direction (RNA to DNA), called for obvious reasons ‘reverse transcriptases’.
The Christian God and our savior Jesus Christ, who created this Earth and populated it through the science of evolution. Damn I am glad to be a common sense Catholic and not a wing nut.
==The Christian God and our savior Jesus Christ, who created this Earth and populated it through the science of evolution.
The only wing nut on this thread is the person who claims that God is a lowly, mistake-prone scientist.
PS And you still haven’t identified which theory of evolution God used to populate the earth. Or do you just ignore the particulars and blindly believe God used evolution even though the Bible says the exact opposite?
LOL you are funny.
Your blind faith in evolution is duly noted.
I also have a blind faith in Jesus... Him and God are darn good at using evolution to create stuff.
The entire reason it is news is its novelty. The notion that genomic regions of high evolutionary conservation will have high functionality has been confirmed so often, that when a stubborn case comes up it makes the news.
The Actual article, not a silly blog where they don't know the difference between translation and transcription.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081001181306.htm
“Evolution is a lot of fun,” said Bejerano, who plans to continue the investigation into what the ultraconserved segments might be doing. “You answer one question, and five others pop up. But one of the most rewarding things to me is the fact that we're developing a growing appreciation for how much these regions (of high evolutionary conservation)actually matter.”
Seems the guy working on the subject is still convinced that these regions are highly important. When he figures it out it will just be one of a thousand other cases where highly evolutionary conserved regions are found to be functional.
Your blind faith is in evolution. The Bible clearly states that God created time, space, matter, and all basic life forms in six consecutive earth days. If you don't believe this plain reading of scripture, then your faith in evolution is stronger than your faith in the Bible.
Nevermind that the majority of Christian believers like you me and the Pope have no problem at all with the Science of Evolution.
- “We must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.” -- Franklin Harold, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Colorado State University, in an Oxford University Press text.
- “Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology. This becomes especially clear when we compare it with a heuristic framework such as the atomic model, which opens up structural chemistry and leads to advances in the synthesis of a multitude of new molecules of practical benefit. None of this demonstrates that Darwinism is false. It does, however, mean that the claim that it is the cornerstone of modern experimental biology will be met with quiet skepticism from a growing number of scientists in fields where theories actually do serve as cornerstones for tangible breakthroughs.” --U.S. National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell
- "[The] Darwinian claim to explain all of evolution is a popular half-truth whose lack of explicative power is compensated for only by the religious ferocity of its rhetoric." --National Academy of Sciences member Lynn Margulis
- “Mutations have a very limited ‘constructive capacity’ … No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution.” --Past president of the French Academy of Sciences Pierre-Paul Grasse
- “The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.” --Late American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould
- “Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves.” --The father of molecular systematics, Carl Woese
- “Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, 'fully formed,' in the Cambrian … The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla." --Invertebrate Zoology Textbook
- “It remains a mystery how the undirected process of mutation, combined with natural selection, has resulted in the creation of thousands of new proteins with extraordinarily diverse and well optimized functions. This problem is particularly acute for tightly integrated molecular systems that consist of many interacting parts…”
--Two leading biologists in Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics
- “New species usually appear in the fossil record suddenly, not connected with their ancestors by a series of intermediates.”
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.—Psalm 90:4
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.—2 Peter 3:8
==Nevermind that the majority of Christian believers like you me and the Pope have no problem at all with the Science of Evolution.
You keep bringing up the Pope and act like you are some sort of authority on the Catholic Church...and yet I can’t recall you ever declaring yourself to be a practicing Catholic. Let me ask you, are you Catholic or Protestant, Allmendream?
I respect and admire the Catholic Church for many things. Their stance on Science being one of them.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19956961/
The pontiff, speaking as he was concluding his holiday in northern Italy, also said that while there is much scientific proof to support evolution, the theory could not exclude a role by God.
“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”
You never answered my question. Are you Catholic or Protestant?
And there are more Christians than just Catholic or Protestant, but as usual your ignorance betrays itself. The last church I attended was Armenian Orthodox. Would you classify them as Catholic or Protestant?
I’m not betting the farm, the evos are. They are the ones who say that there is such thing as functionless genetic material. And they are the ones who say that say that “functionless” genetic material should mutate faster than functioning genetic material. For my part, I don’t believe in functionless DNA, nor do I believe that random mutations provide the raw material for natural selection to magically tranform into the appearance of design, nor do I believe that natural selection is the main factor preventing genetic drift. I believe the ability for organisms to adapt and conserve its program is built right in, and that what we call natural selection, far from being a creative force, is nothing more than an organism’s inability to survive should its program malfunction.
Not what my understanding is.......
Dormant material would have a hard time mutating as it is dormant, unused......just sitting there doing nothing in particular.
So, it gets copied, passed on, and still does nothing.
Nice of you to admit that your going with a “heads I win tails you lose” argument where negative evidence you count while positive evidence you ignore. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way among rational people.
How about the fact that the only reason this made news is that it bucks the OVERWHELMING trend where highly evolutionarily conserved sequences show high functionality?
What explanation do you have for this trend?
Also you never answered my other questions.
Do you think the Pope has more faith in evolution than the Bible?
Do you consider Armenian Orthodox to be Catholic or Protestant?
I don’t know anything about the Armenian Orthodox church. But again, you have failed to say what church you attend now. Is your current church Protestant or Catholic? And yes, I believe that all Protestants, Catholics and Jews who accept evolution are putting more faith in the materialist musings of mere men than what the Bible clearly says about creation. And as a Protestant, while I may agree with the Pope on a great many things, I am not under his authority in any way, and I am just as free to disagree with him on the creation/evolution debate as I am to disagree with any Protestant on the same. And finally, while the Catholic Church seems to be leaning towards a symbolic interpretation of Genesis, it has as of yet to take an official position on the subject, which means Catholics are free to adopt a plain reading of Genesis and hold to Young Earth Creationism.
I don’t have time to answer all your questions write now. I am busy, busy, busy. Suffice it to say that there is a huge difference between what I believe and what the Temple of Darwin believes re: highly conserved sequences. My reason for posting this article was to show that the evidence is contradicting Darwinist expectations. I for one have never believed in the silly Darwinian notion of so-called junk DNA. And thus, their findings in the above article are not paradoxical to me in the least.
So what is your position in regards to this sequence? You pounce upon the fact that no functionality was discovered to cry “see useless DNA that is evolutionarily conserved contradicts Evolution” while simultaneously saying there IS NO useless DNA.
So is the sequence useful, which goes with your “no useless DNA” stance?
Or is the sequence useless, which goes with your “it contradicts the notion that evolutionarily conserved sequences are useful”?
Which one? You can't have it both ways.
==In other words you have no explanation for the trend whereby evolutionarily conserved sequences show functionality.
Tell me Allmendream, what criteria are used to determine which genetic sequences are unconserved?
Basics.
Evolutionary Conservation: a sequence of DNA that shows little change when compared between species.
Nonconserved sequences would be the ones that when comparing between species, show a larger amount of change.
The overwhelming trend is that DNA that shows high evolutionary conservation between species almost always shows high functionality.
The sequence under discussion in the paper shows high evolutionary conservation between species; but rodents without the sequence show a normal phenotype. This is newsworthy only because the overall trend is that evolutionary conservation denotes function. The researcher is still convinced he will find a function for this sequence.
So is it useful DNA, which would contradict your stance that the non-functionality of this region “falsifies” evolution?
Or is is useless DNA, which would contradict your stance that there is no such thing as useless DNA?
Of course the word ultraconserved makes no sense unless common descent is a fact.
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