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To: Dimensio

Some day, I'm sure, humans will come up with self replicating technology. That's not a stretch of the imagination- but they won't evolve because God anticipated the problems we would have on the earth, and built into teh genome line after line of extra programming- also called "junk" genes. Not all of it is junk. Much of it has saved us again and again I imagine. What you call evolution, I call redundancy.

And solar radiation as a means to add lines of code? Take a floppy disc with software and wave a magnet over it, and see how many new lines are written.


195 posted on 01/23/2006 7:56:55 PM PST by warpcorebreach
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To: warpcorebreach
Some day, I'm sure, humans will come up with self replicating technology.

Okay.

That's not a stretch of the imagination- but they won't evolve because God anticipated the problems we would have on the earth, and built into teh genome line after line of extra programming- also called "junk" genes.

Nice assertion. Got any evidence for it?

And solar radiation as a means to add lines of code? Take a floppy disc with software and wave a magnet over it, and see how many new lines are written.

Invalid analogy. DNA is not comparable to software code.
199 posted on 01/23/2006 8:00:48 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: warpcorebreach
"And solar radiation as a means to add lines of code? Take a floppy disc with software and wave a magnet over it, and see how many new lines are written.

You do like your strawmen don't you?

Any analogy to the genome as a program can only be taken so far. The genome is closer to a set of algorithms than to a recipe or blueprint but it is not exact by any means. A closer analogy would be that a non-regulatory gene is a subroutine that creates a subroutine. The gene creates a protein that does some work. In the original gene, a simple point mutation will either do nothing or cause the gene to create a different protein, which in turn will cooperate with other proteins to accomplish their work - at times producing a beneficial characteristic, sometimes a characteristic that is not affected by selection so is considered neutral, and sometimes it will create a characteristic that will be detrimental enough to the organism to kill it off before it replicates.

Solar radiation is a very rare cause for mutation. For a mutation to be inherited it has to be in the germ-line, either sperm or ova. No matter how many cells you have damaged by sunlight, if none of those cells happens to be a gamete, it will not affect inheritance and thus evolution.

The most common type of mutation to affect evolution are those that occur during meiosis, when the germ cells are first created.

So, let's take another look at your analogy:

"And solar radiation " -- Solar radiation can affect the germ line but does so infrequently. If it 'flips a bit' causing a point mutation it may or may not allow the organism to survive. If it does not survive it is taken out of the gene pool immediately. If the sunlight changes more of the germ cell then the likelihood of survival is dramatically reduced. However the affect solar radiation has on germ cells is almost nonexistent and as shown above is self correcting.

"as a means to add lines of code? " -- This presumes lines have to be added to produce anything novel. This just not so. Novel features and functions are always based on what already exists and are produced by modifying those existing characteristics. To accomplish this, the gene or group of genes that control the production of those characteristics need only be changed, whether that means deletion, modification or addition. This is because the DNA string length and content can result in one of many thousands of different proteins. If additional codons are needed, one of the more common mutations from replication errors is gene duplication, where an entire gene or group of genes is added to the genome length. That this happens regularly as is in evidence in the human genome where it has occurred multiple times.

Since this single line represents your entire argument it is evident that the last line has no meaning.

355 posted on 01/24/2006 8:09:19 AM PST by b_sharp (Science adjusts theories to fit evidence, creationism distorts evidence to fit the Bible.)
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