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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 01/14/2011 : 12:03:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JerryB
The reason that the same ERV infects separate species at the same letter of DNA is because that letter of DNA is PRESENT in those same species.
It doesn't know if it is a man or a monkey. It just recognizes that particular area and knows that it can reproduce there. |
This would require that the viruses are only able to reproduce in one specific portion of DNA (at one particular "letter," as you call it). Where is there evidence for that? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2011 : 12:52:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JerryB
Here is the key argument for your side of the debate: "What happens when two different SPECIES share the same ERV at the same letter of DNA? The very same logic applies. Given the improbable event of two separate infections leading to the same ERV the most likely scenario is that the two species share a common ancestor. Taxonomy, through the study of fossils, has come to the conclusion that apes and humans share a common ancestor. Therefore, knowing the implications of ERV production, we should find ERV’s at the same letter of DNA in each of these species. This is a prediction made by the theory of evolution."
The assertion that similar species share the same ERV at the same letter of DNA is true. But the rest of this argument is not.
There exists species specific viruses, as example, if I catch the flue, my cat probably won't come down with it.
There also exists cross-species viruses such as rabies and if my cat catches it, I CAN come down with that.
The reason that the same ERV infects separate species at the same letter of DNA is because that letter of DNA is PRESENT in those same species. |
You clearly aren't understanding the argument. This isn't Oh, look-- Humans are susceptible to such-and-such virus and so are gorillas, so they must have a common ancestor!
This is much, much more complex-- and compelling. These are scars of ERV at particular points in our genome. We share a number of these scars-- at exactly the same points with various other primates. Moreover, just as evolutionary theory predicts, species that we assume through taxonomy to be more closely related share more of these ERV scars (again-- in the same parts of the genome) than species not closely related.
The best explanation for this-- indeed, the only compelling one-- is that these species that share ERV scars also share a common ancestor.
| So, there is no evidence to show that we have retroviruses in the same areas of our genomes because one organism sprang from another. The answer to that would be that this is a cross-species virus and infected the same letter of DNA because it was present in multiple organisms. |
The statistical likelihood of such a thing is almost nil.
And again, the way you are phrasing things makes me think that you still don't understand what evolution says. Humans didn't "spring" from chimps, you know. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2011 : 13:31:36 [Permalink]
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JerryB:
And the link above doesn't discuss Darwinism, it discusses evolution. We all know that the study of mutating organisms is a big part of medicine. But the study of dinosaurs morphing into birds is not. That's why it is very important to distinguish Darwinism from evolution. |
As I said, creationist crapola. This argument so far has only been important to creationists. Why? Because the same process that causes organisms to mutate and evolved are at work whether we are talking about nylon eating bacteria or birds evolving from dinosaurs. I have no doubt that creationists would deny any and all evolution, if it weren't so friggen obvious at the microbial level in the here and now. If creationists agree to what are obviously transitional species, like dinosaurs with feathers, or evidences like ERV's, it's game over.
You can't go there Jerry, because you are a creationist. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2011 : 13:41:43 [Permalink]
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JerryB:
I believe that evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. But I also believe that science prohibits this change from going toward complexity as a tendency. |
"Science" doesn't prohibit anything. Science is a method. A tool. Science doesn't think. Science doesn't make decisions.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2011 : 15:55:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JerryB
I'm just going to ignore the parts of this post where you don't bring a cogent argument, which is most of it. |
Bloviating rhetoric.JERRY: He tells you point blank what he is discussing: "The general principle involved is the famous Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy principle).....
DAVE: So what? |
So what? Because.....LMAO, you claimed that the calculation he used was not SLOT, he says it is: |
The formula he used was Boltzmann's formula, which gives one the quantity "entropy," not the quantity "SLOT." He never made a calculation in that chapter.JERRY: "You don't remember us discussing Feynman, Schrodinger and Ilya Prigogine ALL who worked with SLOT in open systems?"
DAVE: "No, they worked with entropy in open systems, not SLOT. The two are not synonymous."
So now you are going to squirm out by saying you didn't say that?? |
Of course not. I stand by it.| That disingenuous duck won't float. |
Can't help that you don't know what the word "synonymous" means, Jerry.| I swear that just when I think you can't get anymore proposterous, the very next post you do it. Let me guess, you can just read Schrodinger's mind and know what he was thinking and why he wrote that book....LMAO |
All you have to do is to read the book to find out. That's the point of most books, after all. Only woo authors try to hide their arguments.| Schrodinger showed us how to use that formula to calculate negative entropy in the human body because that is a legitimate way to calculate it. |
Argument from authority.| First you argued that the renowned physicist couldn't do simple math... |
No, I said that you can't do simple math.| ...you said he screwed up and the negative entropy should have come out a positive number. |
I never said that, either.| Hmmmm.....ya backed off that one. |
Nope, not at all. My point about the negative sign (which you can't refute because you don't understand algebra) still stands.| Then you argued, well OK, but he showed us how to calculate entropy but that had nothing to do with SLOT. |
I never argued that, either.
Jerry, one of the ways to tell whether someone is interested in a discussion is by whether they can accurately describe their opponent's position. Since you are thoroughly unable to accurately describe my position, it is clear that you're not here to discuss these things, but just to pontificate.| Hmmmm.....you're backing off that one... |
I never backed off any of my arguments with you.| ...and if you do a turn around, I will just post the link again. |
Repeatedly posting links doesn't make your argument magically become true.| So now you are saying that he was wrong again, but heck maybe he wasn't, but he was just trying to make a point? A reference on this, please. A reference that Schrodinger was just wrong and one from him saying that he really didn't really mean what he wrote, he was just trying to make a point. |
Your own references state that Boltzmann's formula is for systems in equilibrium. Therefore, your own references state that Schrödinger was wrong to use Boltzmann's formula to calculate the entropy of living cellsm, since you agree that living cells aren't in equilibrium. Of course, since he never actually did any of the calculations, he was just showing that formulae exist for calculating such things, and he wasn't trying to write a textbook.| BAHAHAhahahahahah........... |
Indeed.Schrodinger was a physics professor at several European universities and was highly skilled in higher mathematics:
"Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933, for his 1926 introduction of Schrödinger's wave, the mathematical equation of wave mechanics that is still the most widely used piece of mathematics in modern quantum theory. It posits a non-relativistic wave equation that governs how electrons behave within the hydrogen atom. He worked on analytical mechanics, applications of partial differential equations to dynamics, atomic spectroscopy, color theory, cosmology, counter (or detector) statistics, eigenvalue problems, electromagnetic theory, general relativity, James Clerk Maxwell's equations, meson physics, optics, radiation theory, solid-state physics, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, and the unified field theory."
http://www.nndb.com/people/308/000072092/ |
Argument from authority.| That book was taken from a series of his lectures on thermodynamics. |
Since he never calculated D (and thus never calculated S), it's clear that he was just illustrating a point, not making a precise physics argument.| Yet you have the arrogance to assert that Schrodinger didn't know what he was doing with that simple formula... |
It's only arrogance if I'm wrong. The only thing you've referenced that says I'm wrong is the very thing I'm saying is wrong. I think Schrödinger knew exactly what he was doing with that simple formula: he was dumbing down a set of very complex physics for lay people like you. I think he knew very well that he wasn't writing a "thermodynamics of life" textbook....and it is DAVE who is going to set the world straight on it.  |
Were Schrödinger alive, I have no doubt that he'd say that one cannot actually apply Boltzmann's formula to living cells (because they're far from equilibrium), and that he was just illustrating a point.I don't know what "spontaneous (natural) cleaning of a messy house" has to do with dust settling out of the air.| And I want the readers to see that you post NO references to support your silly arguments. |
You want a reference that shows a measurement of entropy of dust floating around randomly in the air, and another of dust settled on surfaces, and shows that the former is of higher entropy than the latter? You seriously don't see how it's the opposite situation as perfume in a bottle expanding out into a room?| That's because there is no one out there in science that agrees with Dave, but Dave. |
No, it's because the example is trivially obvious. Dust particles scattered throughout a 3-D room will have more entropy than a layer of dust on a horizontal surface. Gravitational energy is what drives that particular negentropic process.| Then you agree that S and ΔS are different, and your cited author is wrong to use the word "entropy" to refer to both of them. |
Sure, technically that is true but he isn't wrong. You obviously haven't discussed this subject enough to understand the lingo of it. I have never discussed this with any thermodynamicist who didn't do the same thing. I do. |
That's hardly the point, which you've obviously lost.| Isn't it a little obvious that anyone who has had chem 110 or above understands the difference between S and deltaS? You are not exactly revolutionizing the field here. |
I'm not trying to, I'm trying to point out your errors in applying formulae from the field to a genome.| In fact, I'm not even sure I know what your point is anymore. |
That's because you're focused on your straw men more than you are on what I'm saying.| Well of course, why would anyone or anything design something with defective genes in it to begin with, that would be silly. |
So you think some synonymous codons are defective and others aren't? Why?| I don't have to defend #1 because it is so obvious. It is just silly to think that if a designer were intelligent enough to design man, it would also be stupid enough to insert deleteriously mutated genes where they didn't need to be. |
I never once spoke of deleteriously mutated genes. I'm talking about synonymous differences in the codons.
But even then, you can't say what the designer's purpose with creating life really is, so it's the height of hubris to claim to know how it would or wouldn't create humans.| And how could something mutate before it was even created? So that is out. |
Who said anything about mutating?| And #2 is just as obvious. There can be nothing possible but one microstate if the arrangement is perfect, it is either perfect with 0 disorganization or it is disorganized and the figure is something else. |
Then what is the "perfect" codon for Serine? Is it TCT, TCC, TCA, TCG, AGT or AGC?| No, not in thermodynamics as a field, but considering thermodynamic entropy in itself--heat exchanges. And we are discussing configurational entropy (or some call it logical entropy). Please get your terms straight. You are just confusing the readers. |
No, I'm only confusing you.| We are not discussing Shannon entropy either. Please stay on the subject. |
But Shannon's entropy reduces to Boltzmann's formula if all of the possible messages have equal probability. Boltzmann's formula can be derived from Shannon's theory. And configurational entropy reduces to classical thermodynamic entropy if the number of particles is high. There's no substantial difference in these things, but I know it's confusing to you so I'll try (for your sake) to talk about just one at a time.LOL.....Really? Well, you better get some emails off to all of the geneticists in medicine who are so confused in their field that they don't know that when genes mutate in a person's genome, that cannot be considered the same genome and they are now dealing with another patient  |
No, you're just refusing to define the boundaries of the system prior to doing the math. If "the perfect genome" has only a single microstate, then any mutations away from it must make it a whole different system (because no microstates of the "perfect" system are consistent with the mutated system). I'm arguing against the idea of a "perfect" genome having only one microstate, remember, Jerry? You're the one defining the system in such a way that even a single mutation means "the system" is entirely different.| And delta means change. When genes mutate from healthy ones to deleterious ones, that is change. |
And when genes mutate from deleterious ones to healthy ones, that is also change.| You accuse ME of having a shallow understanding of math? |
Yes, I do.| I wasn't looking for local trends--once again, this is most irrelevant. |
I know you weren't looking for local trends, that's your problem.| All I cared to show was that deleterious mutations were increasing and accumulating in the human genome over time. |
But that's like saying, "well, four billion years ago the Earth was a mass of molten rock at thousands of degrees, now it's 72° out, therefore the temperature is dropping and global warming is a hoax. Ignoring everything that happened in the middle means you miss out on the local trends.| The study showed exactly that. |
No, the study didn't show that, nor did it use the word "accumulating," because the only way Eyre-Walker and Keightley could tell if a mutation was deleterious is if it were missing (look at their math). No amount of your repetition will make that study show that deleterious mutations are "accumulating" in the human genome over time, because that's not what they measured.| They are exempt until they stop exchanging energy or matter with their environments, in which case they'll become isolated and they will tend towards equilibrium until "dead." |
Oh, that's brilliant. LMAO.....I would ask for a reference, but you wouldn't bother because even you know there aren't any. |
I don't see how you can disagree. An isolated system is one which doesn't exchange energy or matter with its environment. An open system does. If an open system stops exchanging matter and energy with its environment, it becomes an isolated system. What's the problem with that?| I assume you meant "surroundings" rather than environment. |
They are synonymous in the context of thermodynamics.| Has it occurred to you that if earth ever reached a state where it could no longer give up heat to it's surroundings that the decay process would stop? |
Why is that relevant?| But you have all these relatively small isolated systems running around inside a larger isolated system? |
Point out a truly isolated system inside the universe.| How would further decay into one large system that consists only of randomly floating particles be possible at all then? |
Who says it's possible? The heat death of the universe won't happen because everything "decays" back into particles.| They can no longer exchange anything between them in order to decay OR organize. |
Yes, everything will be at equilibrium, or maximum entropy.| And who or what is going to build some infinitely energy efficient barrier around these systems to stop the exchange of matter and energy between them, the god Zeus? |
What the hell are you even talking about? What "barrier?"| You are just clueless in this subject, you don't think that ponds can freeze or thaw because they are in an open system and thus exempt, suppose. |
A pond onto which you blow hot air won't freeze, no.Let me teach you some 10th grade physics. I am going to use a cup of coffee and define the cup as the barrier--anything outside the cup is the surroundings.
Now remember, the cup of coffee is defined as the system because that is what we are studying. If you start looking at the room, the atmosphere surrounding the house, heat energy being radiated into space at night as happens on earth or being returned to earth by the sun and radiation the next day, you are going to be confused because we only want to know what is happening to the cup of coffee. The cup is our system:
The coffee cools 1000 J and the room is at 300 Kelvin. Now here is Clausius' formula you like to throw around:
deltaS = deltaQ / T
deltaS = -1000J / 300K
deltaS = -3.3 J/K
Well gee, that cup of coffee just organized because it lost heat which is really strange since it is in an open system and SLOT don't even apply to it..... |
Right. SLOT and TLOT together say that entropy must increase or stay the same in an isolated system. SLOT says nothing about the direction of entropy change in non-isolated systems, it just defines the way entropy is calculated in such cases, and so entropy can decrease in open systems like the one you've described. What's your point with this example?| Um.....I'm afraid not. Should that happen, earth will still be able to absorb all kinds of things from space: energy in the form of light from stars, neutrinos and gamma rays and matter such as comets and meteorites. Still very much an open system. |
Quibbling now, are we? Then it'll be an open system in which the incoming energy is far outweighed by the entropic processes (like life) will which be on it, until they're all out of fuel.| Again: if entropy can never decrease in any system (because SLOT allegedly holds universally), then we wouldn't be here having this discussion. There are two parts to SLOT, one which defines the change in entropy for all systems, and the other is when that equation is combined with the Third Law of Thermodynamics to find that in isolated systems, ΔS must be greater than or equal to zero. This is all in Wikipedia. |
I thought you said above: "No, they worked with entropy in open systems, not SLOT. The two are not synonymous."
Now it IS Slot... |
Yes, we were talking about SLOT. Please try to keep up.| ...but there are two kinds of SLOT? |
Nope, never said that.| Well I have news for you, there are about 30 different ways I can think of where SLOT is used differently depending on the system(s) being studied. |
You're helping to prove my point, then.No, you just don't want to answer the question: is every scientist who also happens to be a Christian an "IDist?" Is "belief in a designer" enough to make one an IDist, regardless of the details of that belief?
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I ALREADY answered that question. Why do you keep asking the same questions over and over? It is irritating:
I stated that every Christian that believes Adam and Eve were designed in God's own image is an IDist, certainly to that extent. |
That doesn't answer my question at all, what with the "regardless" clause I put in there.I also stated that doesn't mean they were a modern IDist and into the science I am espousing, this form of ID has only been around, what, 30 years or so?
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Then it's funny when you claim ID has been around since before Christ. Or are there now two forms of ID? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2011 : 20:52:02 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by JerryB
The reason that the same ERV infects separate species at the same letter of DNA is because that letter of DNA is PRESENT in those same species.
It doesn't know if it is a man or a monkey. It just recognizes that particular area and knows that it can reproduce there. |
This would require that the viruses are only able to reproduce in one specific portion of DNA (at one particular "letter," as you call it). Where is there evidence for that?
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Jerry is officially more retarded than the iron sun guy.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2011 : 21:40:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Jerry is officially more retarded than the iron sun guy. |
I dunno about that. I think we'd need to get Jerry's opinion on flavor-changing neutrinos, since Mozina had a hard-on for a fixed and immutable Standard Model. On the other hand, Jerry seems to be about as equally ignorant of what a "model" is, and apparently got all of his education about "Darwinism" from Jack Chick tracts. Mozina also had a demonstrable skill and so could at least avoid being a financial burden on society. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2011 : 10:02:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JerryB
The reason that the same ERV infects separate species at the same letter of DNA is because that letter of DNA is PRESENT in those same species.
It doesn't know if it is a man or a monkey. It just recognizes that particular area and knows that it can reproduce there.
So, there is no evidence to show that we have retroviruses in the same areas of our genomes because one organism sprang from another. The answer to that would be that this is a cross-species virus and infected the same letter of DNA because it was present in multiple organisms.
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The DNA sequence that ERV's recognize is about 4-5 base pairs. There will, just by coincidence, but QUITE A FEW of these in any given eukaryotic genome. Alu elements' target site is the concensus sequence TTAAAA. There are quite a few of those as well in most genomes.
In other words, your "counter-argument" fails miserably.
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METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend
279 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2011 : 09:01:53 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Why would you consider entropy to be "disorder" when I'm discussing configurational entropy? There are multiple ways to specify each amino acid in DNA. That means that there can't be a single correct way, even in a "perfect" organism. There's no difference between CGA and CGU codons, for example, since they both specify Arginine. The "perfect" genome necessarily has more than one possible configuration (microstate), and thus its entropy cannot possibly be zero. |
Dave, you are making the second most common mistake in thermodynamics in my experience. The first is this: SLOT don't apply in open systems. When you hear that one, you know that person knows absolutely nothing about the field and you would have to take him so far to get an intelligent discussion out of him that the effort just isn't worth it.
The second is confusing the different entropies. You always have that guy somewhere in the discussion that wants to subtract thermodynamic entropy from configurational or add logical entropy to some other kind and you cannot do that because they are not the same entropies. That's like trying to add or subtract pears from or to apples and come out with the same kind of fruit in the answer.
You committed the latter mistake. While it is true that we both calculated configurational entropies, there are even different types of this.
I calculated the configurational entropy of a genome disorganlzing over time via the accumulation of deleterious mutations.
You calculated the configurational entropy of the possible ways a designer could have arranged that genome at the time the genome was designed. You then subtracted the latter from the former. lol
Um.....let's see, I have 5 apples. Let's subtract 3 pears from that. How many apples do I still have? Well, gee....my 1st grade teacher would tell me that I STILL have 5 apples,,,,, |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2011 : 09:06:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JerryB
I calculated the configurational entropy of a genome disorganlzing over time via the accumulation of deleterious mutations.
You calculated the configurational entropy of the possible ways a designer could have arranged that genome at the time the genome was designed. You then subtracted the latter from the former. lol
Um.....let's see, I have 5 apples. Let's subtract 3 pears from that. How many apples do I still have? Well, gee....my 1st grade teacher would tell me that I STILL have 5 apples,,,,, |
I was hoping you would figure out this mistake. After all, you subtracted "deleterious mutations per generation" (pears) from "total nucleotides" (apples). If you can ignore the meaning of numbers for your calculation, why can't I? |
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend
279 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2011 : 09:43:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by JerryB
The reason that the same ERV infects separate species at the same letter of DNA is because that letter of DNA is PRESENT in those same species.
It doesn't know if it is a man or a monkey. It just recognizes that particular area and knows that it can reproduce there. |
This would require that the viruses are only able to reproduce in one specific portion of DNA (at one particular "letter," as you call it). Where is there evidence for that?
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A retrovirus (viruses made of RNA but changing it to DNA when it trades with the host) seems to have a preferred mode of insertion. Different viruses like to insert into different parts of the host genome. HIV, for instance, prefers to insert into areas with active host genes. These sites are called integration sites.
However, were I to debate this, I probably wouldn't go with that as my major point. I would go with the fact that about 95% (read that somewhere) of what we previously thought to be junk DNA isn't junk at all. It actually DOES something. |
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend
279 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2011 : 10:10:55 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Cuneiformist
You clearly aren't understanding the argument. This isn't Oh, look-- Humans are susceptible to such-and-such virus and so are gorillas, so they must have a common ancestor!
This is much, much more complex-- and compelling. These are scars of ERV at particular points in our genome. We share a number of these scars-- at exactly the same points with various other primates. Moreover, just as evolutionary theory predicts, species that we assume through taxonomy to be more closely related share more of these ERV scars (again-- in the same parts of the genome) than species not closely related.
The best explanation for this-- indeed, the only compelling one-- is that these species that share ERV scars also share a common ancestor. |
No, I fully understand the argument. And of course the species sharing similar genotypes would exhibit similar virus infections. Dissimilar species usually aren't even susceptible to the same parasites. This surprises you?
Can you cite a paper from a scientist or university stating that there is such a thing as "ERV scars" and that these scars are found at exactly the same points?
And again, the way you are phrasing things makes me think that you still don't understand what evolution says. Humans didn't "spring" from chimps, you know.
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I know. I'm just speaking colloquially. Insert apeoid for chimp and "evolved gradually over time" for spring and morph in my posts if you wish. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2011 : 10:21:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JerryB
A retrovirus (viruses made of RNA but changing it to DNA when it trades with the host) seems to have a preferred mode of insertion. Different viruses like to insert into different parts of the host genome. HIV, for instance, prefers to insert into areas with active host genes. These sites are called integration sites. |
But "preferred mode of insertion" is not a synonym for "inserts at only one 'letter' of DNA."| However, were I to debate this, I probably wouldn't go with that as my major point. |
Of course not, since it's a loser argument and we would all prefer to see your 'A' game.| I would go with the fact that about 95% (read that somewhere) of what we previously thought to be junk DNA isn't junk at all. It actually DOES something. |
Only creationists confuse a shorthand term for "we don't currently know if it does anything" with "it doesn't do anything." Wikipedia notes:Junk DNA, a term that was introduced in 1972 by Susumu Ohno, was a provisional label for the portions of a genome sequence for which no discernible function had been identified. According to a 1980 review in Nature by Leslie Orgel and Francis Crick, junk DNA has "little specificity and conveys little or no selective advantage to the organism". The term is currently, however, an outdated concept, being used mainly in popular science and in a colloquial way in scientific publications, and may have slowed research into the biological functions of noncoding DNA. Several lines of evidence indicate that many "junk DNA" sequences are likely to have unidentified functional activity, and other sequences may have had functions in the past.
Still, a significant amount of the sequence of the genomes of eukaryotic organisms currently appears to fall under no existing classification other than "junk". For example, one experiment removed 0.1% of the mouse genome with no detectable effect on the phenotype. This result suggests that the removed DNA was largely nonfunctional. My bolding.
One will note that Orgel and Crick turned out to be wrong, and that some "junk" DNA is highly conserved, which would mean that it's under a lot of selective pressure and so does something, even if we don't know what that something is. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2011 : 10:27:47 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JerryB
Can you cite a paper from a scientist or university stating that there is such a thing as "ERV scars" and that these scars are found at exactly the same points? |
Can you cite a paper from a scientist or university stating that there is such a thing as "genomic entropy" and that it should be calculated as you did?| Insert apeoid for chimp... |
Why not the proper scientific term, "hominoid?" |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2011 : 10:40:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JerryB
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
You clearly aren't understanding the argument. This isn't Oh, look-- Humans are susceptible to such-and-such virus and so are gorillas, so they must have a common ancestor!
This is much, much more complex-- and compelling. These are scars of ERV at particular points in our genome. We share a number of these scars-- at exactly the same points with various other primates. Moreover, just as evolutionary theory predicts, species that we assume through taxonomy to be more closely related share more of these ERV scars (again-- in the same parts of the genome) than species not closely related.
The best explanation for this-- indeed, the only compelling one-- is that these species that share ERV scars also share a common ancestor. |
No, I fully understand the argument. And of course the species sharing similar genotypes would exhibit similar virus infections. Dissimilar species usually aren't even susceptible to the same parasites. This surprises you? |
No. But again, that's not the point.
| Can you cite a paper from a scientist or university stating that there is such a thing as "ERV scars" and that these scars are found at exactly the same points? |
Sure. But if I do, and if I linked it, what would you do? Squirm around and change the subject?
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An intro to Intelligent Design for skeptics
