Why don't IDists come up with methodologies...

[pitabread]

... to identify genetically modified organisms (GMOs)?

After all, we know that GM organisms are a real thing; humans make them. They're a blatant example of intelligent design being applied to biology.

Yet, my understanding of GM organism identification is that the only way to properly screen these is prior knowledge of the GM sequence and/or GM byproducts.

So why doesn't the ID crowd turn their attention to GMOs and constructing design identification methodologies based on those? After all, it seems like it would be far easier to first detect intelligent design in life forms based on unequivocal examples. And there is real world application for such approach based on various needs to identify and screen for GMOs.

Seems odd the ID crowd hasn't cracked this one.

 

[Radagast]

... to identify genetically modified organisms (GMOs)?

After all, we know that GM organisms are a real thing; humans make them. They're a blatant example of intelligent design being applied to biology.

Yet, my understanding of GM organism identification is that the only way to properly screen these is prior knowledge of the GM sequence and/or GM byproducts.

So why doesn't the ID crowd turn their attention to GMOs and constructing design identification methodologies based on those? After all, it seems like it would be far easier to first detect intelligent design in life forms based on unequivocal examples. And there is real world application for such approach based on various needs to identify and screen for GMOs.

Seems odd the ID crowd hasn't cracked this one.

Well, for a start, over 99% of a GMO's DNA is natural. For another thing, the modified DNA is generally a natural gene from a different species. To the best of my knowledge, no GMO has as yet had a completely human-designed gene incorporated.

If a GMO did have a completely human-designed gene incorporated, it would immediately stand out as intelligently designed, because no related organism would share that DNA sequence.

 

[pitabread]

Well, for a start, over 99% of a GMO's DNA is natural. For another thing, the modified DNA is generally a natural gene from a different species. To the best of my knowledge, no GMO has as yet had a completely human-designed gene incorporated.

We have the technology. For example, scientists implanted a bacterial genome with the code for an animated GIF file: Scientists Just Encoded a GIF into the DNA of Bacteria Using CRISPR

If a GMO did have a completely human-designed gene incorporated, it would immediately stand out as intelligently designed, because no related organism would share that DNA sequence.

Which implies that the only way to identify such design is via comparative methods against non-human designed DNA. But IDists generally propose to detect design in absence of such comparisons.

So how would IDists detect something like the insertion of an encoded GIF into an organism's DNA in absence of a comparative analysis?

 

[Radagast]

We have the technology.

Yes, we could design a protein, construct the DNA to produce that protein, and insert the DNA into an organism. I'm just not aware of any GMO (outside the lab work you mentioned) that does this.

But IDists generally propose to detect design in absence of such comparisons.

Not as far as I know. DNA is just DNA. It encodes proteins. Natural and artificial DNA would probably look exactly the same (with some possible differences in the characteristics of gene networks).

Rather, ID asserts that some evolutionary steps are too large for evolution to explain (in my view ID fails to make the case, partly due to lack of rigour on the "complexity" concept). ID is essentially a theory about relationships between organisms, not a theory about characterising genomes as "evolved" or "designed."