The Barbarian
Crabby Old White Guy
- Apr 3, 2003
- 29,106
- 12,980
- 78
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Libertarian
It occurs to me that when you say a watch is a man-made object it gets a pass
Because it has obvious signs of manufacture. You can, for example, show marks where the various parts were stamped, cut, or machined. And of course, we have all sorts of evidence that people make watches.
whereas when people say life was designed evidence is demanded.
Yep. Same standards. No sign of "design", but then you wouldn't expect that from an omnipotent Creator.
Where's your evidence the object Paley got out of the ground was a man-made object?
See above. Think about it. Shouldn't be hard if you think a little.
Barbarian observes:
Failing to show that geneticists saw non-coding DNA as being functionless, you repeated your assertion. When will we see your supporting data?
Predictions of non-functionality of “junk DNA” were made by Susumu Ohno (1972), Richard Dawkins (1976), Crick and Orgel (1980, Pagel and Johnstone (1992), and Ken Miller (1994), based on evolutionary presuppositions.
Show us that, with the evidence of "evolutionary presuppositions." As you know, much of non-coding DNA is functionless, but as Darwin predicted, vestigial features often are used for new purposes. Would you like to see that? Instead of functional non-coding DNA being a refutation of Darwinian theory, it's another confirmation of Darwinian evolution
By contrast, predictions of functionality of “junk DNA” were made based on teleological bases by Michael Denton (1986, 1998), Michael Behe (1996), John West (1998), William Dembski (1998), Richard Hirsch (2000), and Jonathan Wells (2004).
In the 1960s, biologists were talking about functions of non-coding DNA. Your guys are a few decades late. But creationists often borrow discoveries by real scientists, and claim them for their own.
Barbarian explaining why transitional forms to the "gear" exist:
The basic idea is repetitive "teeth" in which two parts of the exoskeleton interdigitate and move against each other. So, this is a pretty good example of exaption, a feature evolved for one purpose, that's recruited for another.
There's simpler examples of this for locomotion as well; the furca of springtails has teeth that interdigitate and then release to allow jumping. So the argument boils down to "I just don't think it could evolve, even though there are simpler examples."
Click to expand...
Those aren't transitional forms of functional gears,
You'll need more than hand-waving to support that assumption. In fact, as you just learned, the teeth, the legs, and the two limb segments are already there. Simply denying that it could go any further is pointless.
Barbarian observes:
It's called "mutation and natural selection."
Which they discovered is limited to micro-evolution.
Nope. Speciation is well documented. Want some examples?
Developmental gene regulatory network architecture across 500 million years of echinoderm evolution
Evolutionary change in morphological features must depend on architectural reorganization of developmental gene regulatory networks (GRNs), just as true conservation of morphological features must imply retention of ancestral developmental GRN features. Key elements of the provisional GRN for embryonic endomesoderm development in the sea urchin are here compared with those operating in embryos of a distantly related echinoderm, a starfish. These animals diverged from their common ancestor 520-480 million years ago. Their endomesodermal fate maps are similar, except that sea urchins generate a skeletogenic cell lineage that produces a prominent skeleton lacking entirely in starfish larvae. A relevant set of regulatory genes was isolated from the starfish Asterina miniata, their expression patterns determined, and effects on the other genes of perturbing the expression of each were demonstrated. A three-gene feedback loop that is a fundamental feature of the sea urchin GRN for endoderm specification is found in almost identical form in the starfish: a detailed element of GRN architecture has been retained since the Cambrian Period in both echinoderm lineages. The significance of this retention is highlighted by the observation of numerous specific differences in the GRN connections as well. A regulatory gene used to drive skeletogenesis in the sea urchin is used entirely differently in the starfish, where it responds to endomesodermal inputs that do not affect it in the sea urchin embryo. Evolutionary changes in the GRNs since divergence are limited sharply to certain cis-regulatory elements, whereas others have persisted unaltered.
Surprise.
How does this advance your case exactly?
It shows that evolution of developmental gene regulation is a fact, contrary to your denials. The genes persist, but contrary to your assumptions, they evolve over time, so they aren't the same.
Upvote
0