GENETICS- CREATIONISTS need not be INTIMIDATED.

by hooberus 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  cofty

  You may want to check out T. Gregory Ryan's blog on this topic. He is an evolutionary biologist specializing in genome size evolution at the University of Guelph in Canada.

  As with many issues in evolution, this is a matter of relative quantity, not an exclusive dichotomy. We may reasonably expect a significant fraction of non-genic DNA to show evidence of function, and the pursuit of such evidence is a valid and important endeavour. It does not follow, however, that the pendulum must be perceived to swing from entirely functional to entirely non-functional and back again

  He makes an interesting point regarding "The onion test" The onion test is a simple reality check for anyone who thinks they have come up with a universal function for non-coding DNA. Whatever your proposed function, ask yourself this question: Can I explain why an onion needs about five times more non-coding DNA for this function than a human

  Non coding DNA and psuedo-genes remain very compelling evidence for common origin of living things
• 

  hooberus

  bohm said:

  hooberus: I cannot speak of all the resources you posted since i have not read many of them. HOWEVER:...

  Dr. Sanford base many on his claims on a particular simulation he wrote.

  The primary documentation for the main claims in his book are taken from printed [evolutionary] genetics sources. His simulation (which came later) is additional evidence. Hence, his claims can be examined regardless of his simulation.

  WHENEVER you write a simulation, you want to VALIDATE it to make sure you didnt make a mistake. To my knowledge Dr. Sanford never validate his model. Speaking as someone who has read countless papers on various simulations this is a giant red flag. Its like saying a particular type of drug works without testing it. Sanford appears to do it for good reasons - his simulation is not compatible with the real world, and make some unphysical assumptions about evolution so that it HAVE to give poor results. Furthermore, when i examined the simulation, it contained a rather grave bug in the code that controlled how surviving species was selected.

  Interested readers can compare with the following:

  http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Mendels-Accountant.pdf

  "Verification and Validation"

  "Most features on Mendel have been tested for correctness in implementation as well as for agreement with theoretical predictions (Sanford, Baumgardner, Gibson, Brewer, & Remine, 2007a). Simulation results compare very well with the theoretical expectations for situations where mathematical predictions are available. In cases where we could not make specific mathematical predictions, results still matched what general population genetic theory and logic would predict. Altering input parameters consistently resulted in expected effects. Although further validations are under way, current results indicate that Mendel produces reliable results for a wide range of parameter values."
• 

  Gerard

  
• 

  hooberus

  Recent articles poining out that even most "beneficial" mutations involve deleterious (information loosing) processes.

  Is Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics an Appropriate Example of Evolutionary Change?

  http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/41/41_4/2005v41n4p318.pdf

  Darwinism and the Deterioration of the Genome

  http://www.trueorigin.org/mutations01.asp
• 

  cofty

  hooberus - the evidence for the common ancestry of all living things that is found in our genome is off-the-scale compelling.

  It requires an a priori religious motive to deny it. How about explaining your objections in your own words instead of the cut-and-paste appeals to authority?

  Here is a very simple snippet of evidence that I personally find very convincing....

  Occasionally a virus will infect an animal and get its DNA implanted in its host genome, HIV is an example of such an infection. Most infections are of soma (body) cells and end with the death of the hapless victim. Very occasionally a virus will infect a germ (sex) cell of its host and will then become part of the genome of all of its victims descendants.

  These kind of infections, known as "endogenous retroviruses", are very rare and very random. Remember your DNA consists of 3 billion base pairs and is split into 24 pairs of chromosomes. If the same remnant of a virus was found in exactly the same place in the genome of two different people it would be irrefutable evidence that they both inherited it from a common ancestor.
  
  If many such examples were found that exactly matched in two people we know for an absolute certainty that they have shared the same family tree.
  
  Now that the whole human genome has been deciphered many of these examples have been found, every one in exactly the same place proving the common ancestry of every human on earth. However scientists next looked at the genome of the primates and found the very same remnants of ancient virus DNA in exactly the same places.
  
  Not only that but they found a "family tree" of endogenous retroviruses that confirmed exactly the relationships we previously believed to be the case. In other words those species we knew for other reasons to be our closest relatives share more endogenous retroviruses than those more distantly related. We can therefore show exactly when each of these viruses infected our common ancestors.

  

  This is the same kind of evidence with the same degree of certainty that scientist use every day to establish paternity or to convict those accused of serious crimes.
• 

  Gerard

  Creationism is about faith, it is not factual are certainly it is not science, even if they try to use scientific terms or try to piggy-ride their hopes behind knowledge.

  Creationists are nothing more than judeo-christian fundies with the exact same book under their arm. How can they demand to be taken seriously in the scientific realm when they cannot even acknowledge the true age of Earth? Venturing into genetics is even moe ridiculous. Their religious views require a denial of essentially all modern scientific knowledge.

  But creationist spammers are expected, as they are instructed to feed the illusion that there is a scientific "controversy"where in fact there is no scientific controversy regarding the validity of evolution. The "controversy" exists solely in terms of religion:

  Teach the Controversy = a part of a religious ploy with the intent to cast doubt upon the very concept of established knowledge.
• 

  hooberus

  Tuesday said:

  Ugn, these articles are great at ignorning VAST amounts of information.

  Could you please explain why we only have 22 pairs of chromosomes and primates have 24? . . . This is just one small example of things that are left out in articles like these.

  Nothing addressing the merger of chromosome 2 eh? Big shock. That's because all creationists ever do is address straw men that have nothing to do with evolution.

  cofty said:

  Here is a very simple snippet of evidence that I personally find very convincing....

  Occasionally a virus will infect an animal and get its DNA implanted in its host genome, HIV is an example of such an infection. Most infections are of soma (body) cells and end with the death of the hapless victim. Very occasionally a virus will infect a germ (sex) cell of its host and will then become part of the genome of all of its victims descendants.

  These kind of infections, known as "endogenous retroviruses", . . .

  We see again, and again, that evolutionists here obviously don't even bother to read creationists posts. From the opening post: Some responses to Evolutionists claims on things like junk DNA, Endogenous Retroviruses, Chromosome fusion, etc.

  http://www.detectingdesign.com/pseudogenes.html
• 

  cofty

  As I said perhaps you could try doing the research and explaining your objections in your own words. I have spent countless hours studying the arguments for and against, I have no interest in pouring over a lengthy cut-and-paste in what is supposed to be a discussion forum. I doubt if anybody else has.

  I could paste a long article from the flat earth society or from a holocaust denial "expert" I would rightly expect to be ignored unless I could show I could understand and debate the topic.

  Why don't creationists do some real research and contribute something positive to the sum of human knowledge?
• 

  wobble

  Interesting your reference to the Flat Earth Society Cofty. I live in Kent and the modern manifestation of the FE Soc was started in the early 1950's by a guy in Dover.

  After pictures from space clearly showing the shape of the Earth were published, the FE Society claimed they were fake.

  A similar attitude to those who deny the wealth of evidence for how life got started, and how it got to where it is today.

  Flat Earth Mentality.

  Love

  Wobble
• 

  hooberus

  As I said perhaps you could try doing the research and explaining your objections in your own words.

  I have done "research". In addition to other materials, I have actually read the books listed in the O.P. (unlike evolutionist "book reviewers" on this forum), Furthermore some (most) of the summaries in the O.P. are my own words such as:

  "showing that the deleterious mutation rates are vastly higher than evolution can allow for. Evolutionists admit that the deleterious mutation rate needs to be less (much less in reality) then 1 deleterious mutation on average per individual per generation - otherwise genetic degradation and extinction is inevitable."

  "why evolutionists came up with the (now falsified) claim that 99% of DNA is “junk”. (This was not based on observation, but instead on what would be needed to “save” evolution in light of the high observed rates of mutation). Other evolutionists (possibly unaware) later parroted this “ 99% junk” DNA claim as “evidence” against a designer, when in reality it was a figure calculated to bring the effective deleterious mutation rate down by a factor of a hundred to push it to less then one per individual per generation to “save” evolution.

  "regardless of the deleterious mutation rates, that the substitution rate of beneficial mutations into a population with long generation times i.e. humans, is so vastly slow that only a negligible amount of beneficial evolution (only a few hundred nucleotides) could occur even over the evolutionists own time frame ."