Genome Evolution | First, a Bang Then, a Shuffle

The Scientist ^ | 1/27/2003 | Ricki Lewis

[jennyp]

Creationists insist that evolution cannot increase biological complexity. Evolutionists point to gene duplication and the subsequent hijacking of function & refinement thru selection. This article points out just how rampant such duplication-driven complexity increase has been.

[aposiopetic]

bumppmub

[jennyp]

Rampant-Biological-Complexity-Increase BUMP.

[WriteOn]

Chromosomes - God's fingerprints.

[jennyp]

Man you're quick!

[VadeRetro]

"We've known for some time that duplications are the primary force for genes and genomes to evolve over time," says Evan Eichler, director of the bioinformatics core facility at the Center for Computational Genomics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland.

Except, as you say, some of us are making a point of being clueless. Some of us have most definitely not "known for some time" how evolution can account for increases in complexity. You couldn't get this information into a creationist skull if you put it into a notched bullet and shot it in.

[aposiopetic]

Polyploidy is rarer in animals, which must sort out unmatched sex chromosomes, than in plants, which reproduce asexually as well as sexually. "But polyploidization is maintained over evolutionary time in vertebrates quite readily, although rarely. Recent examples, from the last 50 million years ago or so, include salmonids, goldfish, Xenopus [frogs], and a South American mouse," says Postlethwait.

Dumb question on my part: In general, duplication/polyploidization confers no particular advantage to sexually reproducing organisms, but may do so (or not confer disadvantage) in certain instances?

[PatrickHenry]

Duplicate genes are the devil's plaything!

[balrog666]

Creationists insist that evolution cannot increase biological complexity. Evolutionists point to gene duplication and the subsequent hijacking of function & refinement thru selection. This article points out just how rampant such duplication-driven complexity increase has been.

Then they won't show up on this thread.

[jennyp]

Dumb question on my part: In general, duplication/polyploidization confers no particular advantage to sexually reproducing organisms, but may do so (or not confer disadvantage) in certain instances?

I think it's mostly that the polyploid offspring, if they survived, would never find a compatible mate to produce offspring with. (Unlike in plants, which are more likely to find a compatible mate. See here for a good explanation of plant polyploidy.)

[AndrewC]

"...You don't have to be a statistician to realize that the distribution of duplications is highly nonrandom," says Eichler.

Tell us again about random mutation, natural selection.

[Mike Darancette]

Some duplications cause disease. A type of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, for example, arises from a duplication of 1.5 million bases in a gene on chromosome 17. The disorder causes numb hands and feet.

My eyes are glazing over - just like in college.

[HiTech RedNeck]

bumppmub

pum! mup! pup! mump! mubbup! pmupbmupbupppppmmmubbbpmmmuubbb!

Ah yes we can all see how this will eventually get to the Gettysburg Address. Just a matter of time and natural selection.

[jennyp]

Ah yes we can all see how this will eventually get to the Gettysburg Address. Just a matter of time and natural selection.

Nah. If you replayed life's tape, or however that Gould quote goes. But with time & natural selection you would get something meaningful. But it would probably be in a language we've never even heard of!

[mcsparkie]

Creationists insist that evolution cannot increase biological complexity. Evolutionists point to gene duplication and the subsequent hijacking of function & refinement thru selection. This article points out just how rampant such duplication-driven complexity increase has been.

Actually, the vast amount of redundant and non-functional content in the human genome, despite these duplications, is a good indication that all this new available space in the genome has not given rise to increased complexity, just imperfect copies of pre-existing information.

Sometime, read "Science and Information Theory" by Nobelist Leon Brillouin. Information (ie design specifications) do not arise from nothing. Only by transfer from other, equivalent information or intelligence. It is called "negative entropy" and is governed by the second law. Raw energy input increases entropy in a system, not negative entropy (information).

[HiTech RedNeck]

Never fails to amuse me what faith evolutionists have. For every mutation, duplication, what have you that can "find favor" so to speak with the environment there got to be how many millions of don't cares and "turkeys" produced in exactly the same manner? (Remember we got to rule out intelligent design or it ain't "science." Can't have God at the controls of the CAD system twiddling this thing ya know! So we would have to get a staggering amount of this dilapidation and noise.) Once we get to something that is significantly bigger and less prolific than insects, this whole scenario breaks down. But it's all the evolutionists have to play with.

[gore3000]

His group used molecular-clock analyses to date the origins of 1,739 duplications from 749 gene families.

The problem with the above, and with the whole article is that there is no molecular clock. There are several reasons for this the most essential one is that we do not have any examples of half billion year old DNA, 100 million year old DNA or even million year old DNA to make comparisons to. Therefore all the samples we have (with a few exceptions that can be counted on the fingers of one hand) are of current DNA. So how can one tell how far current DNA is from millions of year old DNA if one does not have something to compare it to? The answer is one cannot. The second problem is that SUPPOSEDLY all organisms now living are equally far apart from the first life as all others, so to take one as an example of 'what is older' is totally fallacious. It is using the assumptions of the theory of evolution as to how species supposedly descended from each other to prove how species supposedly descended from each other. This is circular reasoning and utter nonsense. There are more problems with the molecular clock also. Since some creatures have much shorter generations than others, and mutations supposedly occur at each reproduction (how else could they happen!) the 'mutational clock' (for that is what is really being talked about here) should be going at a completely different speed for elephanst than for flys, yet evolutionists moronically claim that it goes at the same speed.

[gore3000]

But with time & natural selection you would get something meaningful.

No you would not. There are supposedly some 10 million years of mutations separating man from chimps. Chimps and men differ by some 5% of their DNA (the evolutionist 1% has been proven wrong by the same man who originally made the statement). Since chimps and men have about 3 billion DNA base pairs that 5% represents some 150,000,000 favorable mutations in those ten million years. Since with all our science, all our billions in research on DNA for decades have not shown a single favorable mutation has ever happened, I think that your statement is absolutely wrong scientifically - just as evolution is completely wrong scientifically.

[f.Christian]

The bottom half of the geologic column (( no fossils )) formed from below . . .

and the top half formed rather quickly from above (( no intermediary fossils )) - - -

uniformism (( time )) // evolution is ==== gone // over // never happened !

[Ahban]

There are supposedly some 10 million years of mutations separating man from chimps. Chimps and men differ by some 5% of their DNA (the evolutionist 1% has been proven wrong by the same man who originally made the statement). Since chimps and men have about 3 billion DNA base pairs that 5% represents some 150,000,000 favorable mutations in those ten million years. Since with all our science, all our billions in research on DNA for decades have not shown a single favorable mutation has ever happened, I think that your statement is absolutely wrong scientifically

Stop trying to use numbers to test their ideas. It makes them furious. All other branches of science use mathematical analysis to support their conclusions, but the rules are different for evolution. For an evolutionist the standard of proof is:

"If I can imagine a way it MIGHT have happened, then you must believe the it DID happen that way, or you are a willfully ignorant bible-thumping idiot. PS- Once the way I imagined that it might have happened gets nullified by further observations, you must then believe that the next thing I imagine is the way it did happen- or else you once again are a willfully ignorant, bible thumping idiot.