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?...

Once again you cannot answer the question.

Is this specific sequence useless or useful?

Your Creation/I.D. prediction is absolutely ludicrous and the evidence shows it is wrong every time it is checked.

“Junk” DNA is characterized by LACK of DNA conservation and lack of function. That is the definition. To claim that “junk” DNA shows conservation is to ignore how it got classified as “junk” DNA in the first place.

As usual you have no idea what you are talking about, your claims are contradictory, you have no explanation for observed phenomena, and yet you claim victory based upon unsourced and unsubstantiated and nonsensical claims.

==Is this particular sequence useless, thus contradicting the paradigm that conserved sequences are functional, as the idiot blog you sourced contends?

As a Creationist, I believe that almost all DNA is functional and conserved (I say almost all, because I am leaving room for sin and decay). And these sequences are not conserved because of natural selection, they are conserved because they are specified by the organism's biological program.

PS The truly idiotic blogs are the ones that contend that undirected processes produce organisms that falsely appear to be the product of super-sophisticated design.

Still no answer.

Are you wrong about all DNA having function?

Or is Creationsafari wrong about this DNA being useless and thus contradicting the paradigm that conserved sequences have function?

Which is it?

I AM pressing you on this GGG, and I am eager for you to once again prove me wrong/s.

Still no source for your contention as well. Still out of time?

==Are you wrong about all DNA having function?

No. Are you saying I’m wrong about ALMOST all DNA having function?

==Or is Creationsafari wrong about this DNA being useless and thus contradicting the paradigm that conserved sequences have function?

If you knew anything about CreationEvolutionHeadlines, you would know they have long maintained that the whole silly idea of a vast genomic wasteland of “junk-DNA” is an evolutionary fantasy that would later collapse when said DNA proved to be functional. Once again, this represents yet another victory for Creation/ID scientists, and another humiliating defeat for the Temple of Darwin.

Not a general statement about DNA. THIS PARTICULAR SEQUENCE UNDER DISCUSSION! Is it useful or useless? You already tried to weasel out by making a vague claim. I am talking about this SPECIFIC sequence.

Either it is useful DNA and Creationsafari is wrong about the link between conservation and function being broken.

Or it is useless and you are wrong about there being no such thing as useless DNA.

Which is it?

How can you realistically claim victory when you cannot answer a simple question.

Is THIS SPECIFIC SEQUENCE useful or useless according to your prediction based upon Creationism?

How can this evidence be “once again” confirmation that there is no useless DNA while simultaneously being useless DNA that breaks the link between conservation and function?

You are once again trying to simultaneously claim two contradictory things.

Is this specific DNA sequence useless or useful?

CreationEvolutionHeadlines is simply pointing out the stupidity of the Evos. The only standard the Evos are being judged by is their own religious conviction that genomes should be filled with useless genetic remnants leftover from millions of years of undirected genomic patchwork. As it turns out, not only are the Evos finding out the the so-called “junk-DNA” is highly conserved, but they are also finding out that the genetic material that they so badly misnamed “junk-DNA” is proving increasingly functional—just as Creation and ID scientists have been predicting all along. Needless to say, each new revelation of this sort is yet another victory for Creation/ID scientists, and yet another humiliating defeat for the Temple of Darwin.

No, “junk” DNA is NOT highly conserved. There is conserved DNA which is functional and nonconserved DNA which is non functional. Nothing is called “junk” DNA by any Biologist except nonconserved DNA.

Creationsafari (which confuses translation with transcription among other idiotic errors), if it was consistent in anything other than opposition, would be with the Scientist in thinking that a function would not only be found for this highly conserved DNA, but would also assume that a function should be found for ANY DNA.

You still cannot answer my question.

And for a guy with no time to source his contentions you sure seem to have a lot of time to repeat nonsense.

Why no answer?

Is this particular sequence useful or useless?

Why so frightened of the question?

==Is this particular sequence useful or useless

You seem to have a fetish for straw-men, Allmendream. Have you not yet gathered that contrary to silly evolutionary expectations, that Creation Scientists have always maintained that what your co-religionists call “junk-DNA” would later prove to be both functional and highly conserved? I don't know the details on why this particular sequence is conserved, but I don't really need to since I have always believed that “junk-DNA” would prove to be functional ever since I was first introduced to the topic. Give me any genetic sequence from a functioning organism, and I will predict it is both conserved and functional. It just plain makes sense from a Creation/Design perspective. The Temple of Darwin, on the other hand, once again has egg all over its face because (as per usual) their silly notion that millions of years of undirected genetic patchwork would leave a graveyard of junk-DNA in its wake is now being flatly contradicted by science...a turn of events that Creation and ID scientists have been predicting all along d:op

Still no answer to the question. It is not a strawman. You are trying to simultaneously claim two contradictory things; that this DNA is useless and it falsifies evolution, and that all DNA is useful.

And nonconserved DNA is what was called “junk DNA” by some Biologists. Your assertion that “junk DNA” is conserved is simply defies all logic and reason, seeings as how Biologists define “junk DNA” by the fact that it DOESN'T show evolutionary conservation.

So which is it?

Is this particular sequence useless or useful?

When I use the word “conserved” I don’t mean it in the same way the Evos use the term. I use “conserved” in the sense that the sequence will be retained by the organism itself. I most assuredly do not mean to imply that it is conserved relative to some phony evolutionary tree drawn up by religiously motivated Temple of Darwin fanatics.

Disgusting. Now you try to change the terms? You don't get to define the terms used in Biology. Biologists do.

Even if you think that the “conservation” is “conservation of design” rather than “conservation of sequence from a common ancestor”; genetic conservation means that the sequence is much the same between species. That is what conservation means, that it is the same when compared BETWEEN SPECIES.

And your contentions are still not sourced. Still short of time?

Still no answer to the question.

Is this sequence useless or useful?

Why are you terrified of answering the question?

Well then, once a function for this DNA sequence is found, exactly as predicted by Evolutionary theory, and as expected by the Scientist who discovered these sequences; then Creationsafari will look rather ridiculous for claiming that evolution was falsified because the link between evolutionary conservation and function was broken.

Hard for the link between conservation and function to be broken once a function is found for the sequence.

So now that you have discarded the idiotic premise of the Creationsafari headline you posted. What use is it?

What is it you are asking me to source? That Creationists and IDers have long predicted that the Temple of Darwin would be proven wrong with respect to their idiotic claim that the majority of the genome is “junk-DNA”? Or are you asking me to source that the particular sequence in question is useful? If the former, I can dig up plenty of links. If the latter, we will have to wait until the Evos are finally forced to admit that yet another sequence of “non-coding,” “functionless,” “junk DNA” turns out to be functional in ways their adled Darwiniac brains could never imagine.

The CreationEvolutionHeadlines article is drawing attention to the fact that the Evos are trying to have it both ways. First they declare non-coding genetic sequences are junk, and now that “junk DNA” is turning out to be functional, they declare that non-coding sequences must have some hidden function if they are similar between species. Creationists and Iders, on the other hand, have been consistent all along. Whereas Evos will be forced to come full circle before long.

So what use is the article that started this thread if you are convinced that the linkage between conservation and function will be eventually confirmed?

We are apparently both in agreement that a function will be found for this sequence.

Creationsafari says that not finding a function for this sequence “falsifies” evolution. You post the article, but then admit you expect them to eventually find a function for the sequence.

As for what you claimed you had no time to source several hours and numerous posts ago, it was your contention that conservation and divergence of DNA sequences between species is better explained by Creationism/ID than Evolutionary Biology based upon things you have read.

Seeings as how I.D. thinks this is evidence of common descent, maybe you better concentrate on the Creationist side. I have yet to hear a satisfactory Creation based explanation for this phenomenon. Somehow I don't think you will be the first to come up with one.

Nobody claimed non coding DNA was all “junk”. Biologists well know that some of it has a regulatory function, turning on and off genes. Now “junk” DNA is defined as nonconserved DNA, and it is assumed to not have a function. But this makes doubly ridiculous your assertion that “junk” DNA is “highly conserved”.

Some elements of DNA in the genome are conserved between species, and other elements do not show this conservation. Is it your contention that they all show, or should all show the same level of conservation? The data sure doesn't support that little bit of malarkey.

Also you keep misusing the word genetic sequences. A genetic sequence is a coding sequence. There is no such thing as a non-coding genetic sequence. Gene = Genetic. A gene is a DNA sequence in an open reading frame that can be translated into a protein.

Also the prediction that conserved sequences would have function and nonconserved sequences would be useless has been shown numerous times. This is the reason the original finding was newsworthy. It bucked the overall trend that conserved sequences are functional; a scientific “man bites dog” story.

In order to break this linkage between function and conservation all one must do is find a DNA sequence that is essential to the survival of an animal that doesn’t show evolutionary conservation. Good luck with that as there seems to be a dearth of actual research among people on your side.

Biologists are trying to have it ONE way. Functional domains of the genome show conservation of DNA sequences between species. Thus nonfunctional or “junk” DNA domains will not show evolutionary conservation.

A conserved sequence was removed in rodents without ill effect. This is interesting because the overwhelming pattern is that conserved sequences have essential functions.

Both the Scientist, you and I all agree that a function WILL be found for this conserved sequence. The Scientist and I because it is conserved, and you because you think ALL DNA will be found to have a function.

So who is going to defend the stupid Creationsafari position? Anybody? Who is going to claim that the linkage between function and conservation is broken because there never will be a function found for this sequence?

What use is it in posting an article that, when pressed, you admit you don't believe in its conclusion?

==So what use is the article that started this thread if you are convinced that the linkage between conservation and function will be eventually confirmed?

I believe almost all genes, coding and non-coding alike, are conserved in the sense that they are required by each organism's genetic programming. The Evos are forced to posit similar sequences between species as being evidence for evolution because their logic is straitjacketed by their passionate faith in blind materialism. Sure the genes shared between species are conserved, but so are the genes that aren't shared between species. This is because all genes are conserved (or mutated) by a biological program that was frontloaded into every living creature at the time of creation, passed down via reproduction, and is quite flexible within the bounds of the original created kinds. Thus, the Evos have taken the word "conserved," twisted its meaning, and pressed it into the service of Darwin's fanciful creation myth. This is one of many reasons why the Evos should not be allowed to coopt the language of science. Thus, from now on, whenever I use the word "conserved," I will be using it in its proper context. That is, I will be referring to genetic sequences retained within species, not between species.

==Now “junk” DNA is defined as nonconserved DNA, and it is assumed to not have a function. But this makes doubly ridiculous your assertion that “junk” DNA is “highly conserved”.

They are wrong about that too. Even non-coding DNA that is not shared between species will prove to be functional and thus highly conserved by the genetic program that defines the same.

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