The Common Ancestry Thread

by cantleave 271 Replies latest members adult

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  cantleave

  Ticker,

  How much of what you written do you actually understand? You seem to have jumped from ERV's to noncoding DNA in a sentence. Which are you referring too? They are different thing. Let me give you a clue - one of them is a virus remnant.
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  cofty

  Ticker is speed-reading answersingenesis and arguing about stuff he doesn't have the slightest clue about.
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  cofty

  As one scientist noted in 2001, “Those of you who still think junk DNA is junk, I invite you to take it out of your genome, and see what happens.”

  Could we have a reference for this quote please?

  Either she/he is a very dumb scientist or they have been quoted out of context.
• 

  cantleave

  Either she/he is a very dumb scientist or they have been quoted out of context

  Cofty, as far as I can see, Noubar Afeyan , president and CEO of NewcoGen Group of Cambridge, Mass is apparently your man - not a scientist an MA....
• 

  cantleave

  To put the quote in context (sorry this is a cut and paste)

  2001 Tri-Conference Celebrates Human Genome Project

  The Fairmont Hotel atop San Francisco hosted three two-day genomefests in March, sponsored by the Cambridge Healthtech Institute: "Genomic Partnering: Emerging and Early-Stage Companies," "Human Genome Discovery: Commercial Implications," and "Gene Functional Analysis." An eclectic roster of speakers tried to encapsulate their excitement in 15-minute speed-of-light Powerpoint presentations, while the exhibition featured a smorgasbord of bioinformatics companies old and new, with ever more clever names containing the letters "gen." Many were interested in assembling SNP maps, either starting with Founder populations, or with patient populations plagued by a particular complex trait, from cardiovascular diseases to eating disorders.

  The jargon was a curious mix of acronyms heralding the dark ages when genomics was genetics--from BACs and ESTs, to RFLPs (probably the worst of the bunch) to SNPs (probably the best)--all mixed with MBA-speak. At one point, when yet another presenter evoked the tired image of mining for data, promising his start-up would provide "the picks and shovels for genome prospectors," a collective groan arose from the audience. And so quickly has this new field evolved that some journalists were taken by surprise, expressing astonishment that a biomedical meeting would attract so many computer companies.

  Yet any genome conference nowadays is a heady experience, especially for anyone old enough to remember the mid-to-late '80s meetings where the idea to sequence the human genome was first batted around, amid much skepticism.

  Ari Patrinos , associate director of science for biological and environmental research at the U.S. Department of Energy in Germantown, Md., succinctly summed up the results of the project. "We have 30,000 to 35,000 genes that encode more than 100,000 proteins. Our complexity arises from how we use our genome." (Patrinos can be seen in the human genome issue of Science standing between a grinning J. Craig Venter and Francis S. Collins , 1 perhaps a greater feat than the actual sequencing.) He also eloquently captured the general ambiance of amazement. "It seems like the morning after. Now we are sobering up, picking up the pieces, and realizing two fundamental things: One, there is still very much left to be done in completing the sequence. What we celebrated [in February] was a rough draft. Some parts are extremely difficult to sequence. Two, there is reason to be very excited, in delicious anticipation of what lies ahead. We are at the beginning of uncharted territory."

  But it was a comment by Noubar Afeyan , president and CEO of NewcoGen Group of Cambridge, Mass., that brought down the house. Said he, "Those of you who still think junk DNA is junk, I invite you to take it out of your genome, and see what happens."

  --Ricki Lewis
• 

  cofty

  Thanks cantleave. As usual Ken Ham and co love to quote-mine without any respect for context.

  Ticker - did you look at the diagram?

  Every arrow represents a piece of viral DNA that ended up in a sex cell of one of your ancestors. There are 3 billion base pairs in your genome and those viruses could have ended up anywhere in that sequence.

  Please explain to us how a piece of viral DNA ends up at precisely the same spot in more than one species.

  Then explain how that happens 11 times.

  And why do we share 11 common ERVs with chimps and gorillas but only 9 with orangutans, 7 with gibbons, 4 with old world monkeys and 2 with new world monkeys? Not only do we share these ERVs with a relative frequency that evolution predicted but they are at the exact same place in the genome.

  Stop looking for ill informed rebuttals at AIG and take time to really read and think about the astonishing evidence we are sharing with you.
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  cofty

  Let me explain why the comment about Junk DNA is willfully misleading.

  If you right-click on a web page and select "View Page Source" you will see the HTML, CSS and JavaScript code that makes the webpage look as it does.

  I have a few websites that I built myself and as an untrained coder I know that my pages contain some obsolete code. Sometimes CSS code is duplicated between the page and the CSS file or may contain conflicting instructions.

  Those who know more than me will tell you that programs such as the one that runs your operating system contains lots of "bloat code".

  These things often tell a story if you know how to read it about the history and rushed revisions of a page.

  Nobody is saying that it would be safe to go through a program or page of code and blithely delete all non-functional tags and operators. Your program or page would stop working.

  The same goes for non-coding DNA like ERVs LINES and SINES. You can't just chop them out with impunity but they still started as parasitic code and now make up more than 40% of your genome with a further 40% still to be deciphered.
• 

  cofty

  Cantleave - I just noticed that quote was from 2001.

  In terms of genetic research that was like a hundred years ago.
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  cantleave

  Indeed Cofty. The conference was also looking the commercialistion implications of that very early research. The quote was not from a scientist, it was not a debunk of the evolutionary implication of genetic research, but how to make money from it!
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  Ticker

  I am reading your articles however I also think it's wise to get information from multiple sources and not just ones steeped in an evolutionary prejudice. I'm trying to contrast all the information between them and they are much in agreement except on certain points. I have looked at your chart and thank you for providing it. Still require a little more time to go through it with some source and other relevent information regarding it. Also noted was the addressing of the biological functions of non-coding DNA in Can'tLeave post 10536. My point was to further emphasize that some of these functions are not redundancies.

  There's no need to resort to ad hominem. I put up some rebuttals against the articles posted and have yet to hear a satisfactory response to some of them. I never once claimed to be an expert in the field of genetics but offered to give my best since the thread asked for an opposing view. I'm only one person and my time is limited. Let me look into the chart you've provided and then respond.