unintelligent design.

npetreley · Jul 22, 2002

Originally posted by chickenman
npeterly, I really don't care whether you think the arguments are stupid, I want to hear an explanation for these homologous regions of DNA, like ALU and LINE repeats. Why do humans and chimps have them in the same places?

Why don't you ask the One Who created them?

npetreley · Jul 22, 2002

Originally posted by LiveFreeOrDie

Actually, it's your logic that is flawed.

I knew when I clicked "Submit Reply" that some expletive was going to say that. But I actually had this dumb idea that people here were intelligent enough to understand THAT was the point I was making. Neither conclusion is based on logic or on factual information. No point in explaining further because these concepts are too difficult for people like you.

Jerry Smith · Jul 22, 2002

Originally posted by npetreley

Why don't you ask the One Who created them?

She said for me to use my noggin' and to quit being such a stiff-necked literalist... whatever that means...

chickenman · Jul 22, 2002

I wonder whether I should take a leaf out of npeterly's book and declare victory because my challenge is unanswered

Jerry Smith · Jul 22, 2002

I knew when I clicked "Submit Reply" that some expletive was going to say that. But I actually had this dumb idea that people here were intelligent enough to understand THAT was the point I was making. Neither conclusion is based on logic or on factual information. No point in explaining further because these concepts are too difficult for people like you.

Let's see if I, like LiveFreeOrDie, am too stupid to understand your point, then.

Ok.. the article says that finding some "function" for a bit of otherwise "functionless" DNA doesn't really change much, considering that 95% of DNA is functionless. In other words, it doesn't change the fact that the "common designer" explanation of DNA homology still can't explain the other 94.99% of non-coding and non-regulatory DNA. One must go beyond the "common designer" hypothesis to explain this. Evolution explains homology between coding, regulatory, and non-functional DNA by the same simple and elegant mechanism: common descent.

Now, is this the same as assuming that because one bit of DNA thought to be functionless is found to have a function, then the rest of them will also be found to in the future?

No.

So it turns out that I am just as stupid as he is, or that Live Free Or Die is correct.

Another point: One "function" that has been found for "non-functional" DNA is a "structural" function that it can serve just as well with any non-coding sequence - so that function does not require homology of sequence.

LouisBooth · Jul 22, 2002

"it doesn't change the fact that the "common designer" explanation of DNA homology still can't explain the other 94.99% of non-coding and non-regulatory DNA. "

So you're saying just because we don't know what it does means it has no function?

Jerry Smith · Jul 22, 2002

Well, Louis, yes I am. At least for the most part. The best way to put that is that it gives every appearance of having no function. If you read the article that chickenman posted a link to, you will see why we can have pretty good confidence that most of it has no function at all, unless it is merely structural support.

Jerry Smith · Jul 22, 2002

But no, Louis - that wasn't all I was saying. The main point is that the "common designer" hypothesis doesn't explain the data as it is currently understood. We may someday understand it differently than now - and at that point, the "common designer" hypothesis may have an explanation, but right now it doesn't. And it won't if we find a function in a single bit of functionless DNA either.

By the way, you should browse the rest of this thread. It is kind of focused on the various failures of the "common designer" hypothesis...

Jerry

chickenman · Jul 22, 2002

its more reasonable at this stage to assume it has no function than to assume it does - because there isn't any evidence that it does have a function, and there don't seem to be any proposals for what it might do. It just sits there, untranscribed. If as jerry says, it has a structural funtion (regulation of the size of the nucleus) then the sequence doesn't need to be the same

LouisBooth · Jul 22, 2002

"The best way to put that is that it gives every appearance of having no function. If you read the article that chickenman posted a link to, you will see why we can have pretty good confidence that most of it has no function at all, unless it is merely structural support."

I might check it out. Sounds like a little toe to me...most people think it has no use, but cut it off and you have to learn to walk again. Or was it the big toe..LOL..anyway, you see my point. Remember, science is usually wrong the first time, and the second..and third...

I'll browse it, though I'll probably won't see what you do, or in a different light anyway.

Jerry Smith · Jul 22, 2002

chickenman -- we know a little more about it than that even. We know how some types of pseudogenes arise. If it had an important function, we wouldn't (for instance) want to wait on a virus to come along and copy a bit of its DNA into our gamete stem line so that we could have the function...

LiveFreeOrDie · Jul 22, 2002

Originally posted by npetreley
But I actually had this dumb idea that people here were intelligent enough to understand THAT was the point I was making.

That your logic is flawed?  Yes, we are all intelligent enough to understand that.

Jerry Smith · Jul 22, 2002

I might check it out. Sounds like a little toe to me...most people think it has no use, but cut it off and you have to learn to walk again. Or was it the big toe..

I'm pretty sure that's the little toe, but I won't argue the point - it being outside my range of understanding and knowledge...

LOL..anyway, you see my point. Remember, science is usually wrong the first time, and the second..and third...

Being productively wrong is just about as imporant as being right, but I prefer to see it another way: science usually yields a better, more accurate, and more complete understanding of the natural world as time progresses...

I'll browse it, though I'll probably won't see what you do, or in a different light anyway.

Bear this question in mind: for retroviral insertions, why would we want to wait around until a virus saw fit to copy bits of itself into our genome before acquiring that as-yet undiscovered fucntion?

LouisBooth · Jul 22, 2002

"I prefer to see it another way: science usually yields a better, more accurate, and more complete understanding of the natural world as time progresses... "

Agreed, but some things are out of the reach of science and it also assumes certain things, which also give us more limitations on it. I would agree though. I would also say that creation is a supernatural event, thus science can't quite grasp all of it, as with most (if not all) times science ventures into the supernatural. Good word useage..natural world.

Jerry Smith · Jul 22, 2002

Yet, for at least the last 3 billion years, God has been kind enough to allow his creation to proceed naturally - so there are big hunks of it that science can understand. If you get into cosmology, there may be as much as 15 billion years of this kindness.

LouisBooth · Jul 22, 2002

I also disagree there.

Jerry Smith · Jul 22, 2002

Do you see the "miracle of birth" in the same way? God creates a new person, science can understand the process, but since you believe God created that person, you also believe that science is wrong in its understanding of the process because it cannot cope with the supernatural, and God supernaturally created that new person?

chickenman · Jul 22, 2002

what possible function does a mutation in a vitamin c gene serve? I just find it impossible to correlate intelligent design to the shared mutation in this gene among primates.

Jerry Smith · Jul 22, 2002

chickenman - the function is to keep us from being able to make vitamin - c. And to keep chimps from being able to. Even though both of us have the gene that would normally enable us to. The one that rats have. And elephants. And giraffes. And horses. And shrews. And dolphins. Only broken in the same place in us and our nearest cousins. That can be explained easily in terms of common descent, but cannot be explained well at all in terms of common design. You know...

LouisBooth · Jul 22, 2002

"Do you see the "miracle of birth" in the same way? "

In a way maybe. I think this is something totally different though

unintelligent design.

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