Evolution is a Fact #10 - Non-Coding DNA

by cofty 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cofty

  Hadriel - great questions thanks.

  Evolution is about changes in the frequency of alleles in a gene pool. At that level evolution is still going on but changes are subtle and gradual.

  Change happens when there is competition to survive long enough to reproduce.

  Some species have hardly changed a bit in millions of years because they fill a niche and haven't experienced much selection pressure.

  Humans have learned to control their environment so while our ancestors might have missed out on the chance to pass on their genes we have sorted out most of those challenges. We don't have to be big, strong or fast to catch our food for example.

  Your suggestion about skin to combat UV is interesting. African humans are better equipped to dealt with that than northern Europeans. Any further changes would only be selected for if they increased the chances of living long enough to pass on our genes. Natural selection doesn't care one little bit if we fall apart after we have had our children.
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  cofty

  Here is a very good example of human evolution from relatively recent history...

  Later in this series I will look at an experiment with e coli that demonstrated evolution in real time.
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  Perry

  Although it's approximately 3 billion letters long only a small fraction of it contains instructions on making humans.

  I quit reading after this statement. This is a carefully worded statement designed to deflect the fact that evolutionists at first trotted forth the desperately needed proposition that 98% of human dna was junk. This was done to try and prop up the vast amounts of trial and error that the evolutionist relies upon to make sense of his chaotic world. Over the years, I have watched the "98% junk dna" dwindle little by little by real scientists to less than 20 % now. Article here.

  As more testing is done, the 20% figure will doubtless dwindle more and more, in tandem with the increase of dissenting scientists.
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  cofty

  I quit reading after this statement

  That was silly of you.

  Over the years, I have watched the "98% junk dna" dwindle little by little by real scientists to less than 20 % now

  No you haven't. I addressed the flawed Encode papers later in the OP. As little as 9% of human DNA is under selection pressure.

  Encode did violence to the word "function" in order to justify spending $40- million in order to increase our knowledge of functional DNA from 5% to 9%.

  You still have to explain why an onion has 10 times as much DNA as a human.

  Geneticists know exactly how most of our DNA was formed by copying errors.

  Please see the following link for a detailed refutation of Encode...

  and the following list of criticisms of Encode in peer reviewed journals..
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  C0ntr013r

  Why is not all this "garage" code disposed of? If something takes energy to create but is useless, the process of evolution usually removes it. I am thinking natural selection would favor a species where the energy to copy every cell(DNA inside) was reduced.

  Like the reason we don't have tails anymore for example.
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  cofty

  the process of evolution usually removes it. I am thinking natural selection would favor a species where the energy to copy every cell(DNA inside) was reduced.

  No there really does not seem to be any mechanism for editing "bloat code" unless it has a deleterious effect.

  In fact the opposite is the case. Code that can freeload and get copies of itself passed on to future generations is successful by definition. Whether or not it contributes to the phenotype is not important as long as it is in a genome alongside genes that do build bodies.
  

  For similar reasons parasites are perhaps the most successful lifeforms in history.
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  C0ntr013r

  No there really does not seem to be any mechanism for editing "bloat code" unless it has a deleterious effect.

  From what I understand, that would not be required. Individuals born with less "bloat code" would have an edge over the other members of their spices since they would need slight less energy to survive during their lifetime.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directional_selection

  Whether or not it contributes to the phenotype is not important as long as it is in a genome alongside genes that do build bodies.

  Could not a speciation or mutation within a species have reduced "bloat code"?

  In biology, a mutation is a permanent alteration of the nucleotide sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, orextrachromosomal DNA or other genetic elements. Mutations result from damage to DNA which is not repaired, errors in the process of replication, or from the insertion or deletion of segments of DNA by mobile genetic elements.[1][2][3]Mutations may or may not produce discernible changes in the observable characteristics (phenotype) of an organism. Mutations play a part in both normal and abnormal biological processes including: evolution, cancer, and the development of the immune system, including junctional diversity.

  To me it looks like all the criteria are filled for the "junk" to slowly vanish.

  Can you explain in more detail?

  Thank you for your responds! :)

  
  

  
  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
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  cofty

  Individuals born with less "bloat code" would have an edge over the other members of their spices since they would need slight less energy to survive during their lifetime.

  Obviously the amount of energy required for cell duplication with a large genome is so small that it doesn't amount to a selection pressure. Perhaps there is an upper limit but even onions with their gigantic genomes ten times as large as humans haven't reached it yet.

  How would a mechanism work that could distinguish between useful and DNA and random copying errors?
  

  Large amounts of non-coding DNA actually provides raw material for innovation...

  To me it looks like all the criteria are filled for the "junk" to slowly vanish.

  Your quote doesn't show that. What criteria?

  Interestingly puffer fish have very small genomes. Perhaps they have discovered something?
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  Half banana

  There is not much rhyme or reason in the size of a genome. The human with 3.1 billion base pairs is seven and a half times more than the puffer fish, Fugu rubripes (of crazy Japanese dining fame) which has 400 million base pairs.

  As you mention Cofty, the interesting bit is that much of the of human DNA code is duplicated and we seem happy to drag around so much redundant coding without effect or biological stress. It bears the evidence of evolved biology and not the work of an idealized perfect creator. Scientists hoped to find uses for the duplications but the greater interest these days is in epigenetic factors i.e the circumstances or environment of gene transmission.

  The puffer fish expresses most of all its genes which, having a backbone, makes it a useful organism to use in researching evolutionary change. A bit like the genetecists old favourite, the fruit fly Drosofila, which has just four large chromosomes.

  How about the loblolly pine, Pinus taeda which has seven times the size of the human genome with 21 billion bases? The smallest known genome belongs to is a symbiont bacterium living inside a bug which has just a paltry160 thousand base pairs.

  It looks like chance at work here in the arbitrariness of genome size and the randomness of duplication, but by getting to know a bit about DNA one can only marvel at Mother Nature’s refined methods.

  Fisherman might I suggest you are confusing your assertions with the philosophical notion of Karl Popper who pointed out that the only useful information was that which could be falsified. Facts are good because they can be falsified! But you must show the evidence...

  Science proceeds by disproving things as well as predicting and testing by experiment. You could falsify evolution and biological data, they are real things; hence we are dealing with factual evidence however if you falsify data as a scientist you will be dismissed and disgraced.

  On the other hand you cannot falsify God's love anymore than you can prove or disprove God since there is no data on him... and therefore he/she/ it is a factual irrelevancy.
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  C0ntr013r

  Obviously the amount of energy required for cell duplication with a large genome is so small that it doesn't amount to a selection pressure. Perhaps there is an upper limit but evenonions with their gigantic genomes ten times as large as humans haven't reached it yet.

  That could be it.

  I was thinking that with DNA being 250g of the body weight and a hand weighting between 250g - 500g the impact would be big enough, but you might be right.

  How would a mechanism work that could distinguish between useful and DNA and random copying errors?

  Natural selection? The individuals with "random copying errors" die and the once "with useful and DNA" procreate. But as you said, maybe the selective pressure is to smal.

  Your quote doesn't show that. What criteria?

  I was referring to: 1 useless piece sucking energy. 2 random changes within DNA naturally accruing.

  In my mind that is all that is needed for change.

  A new aspect I just thought of:

  If we have varying amounts of "bloat code" within different species, would that not indicate that something is going on? With billions more or less of the base pairs, if all code was copied all the time, would not all species living now have billions of base pairs? Also, the more something has evolved, would that not indicate more "bloat code" in a human than say a trilobite and so on?