Surprises in sea anemone genome (More Vindication for Intelligent Design/Creation Science)

The Scientist ^ | July 5, 2007 | Melissa Lee Phillips

[GodGunsGuts]

The study also found that these similarities were absent from fruit fly and nematode genomes, contradicting the widely held belief that organisms become more complex through evolution. The findings suggest that the ancestral animal genome was quite complex, and fly and worm genomes lost some of that intricacy as they evolved.

It’s surprising to find such a “high level of genomic complexity in a supposedly primitive animal such as the sea anemone,” Koonin told The Scientist. It implies that the ancestral animal “was already extremely highly complex, at least in terms of its genomic organization and regulatory and signal transduction circuits, if not necessarily morphologically.”

[js1138]

I didn’t make him say the opposite of what he intended.

There you go again.

If you hadn't intended to misrepresent what Gould intended, you would have presented his thesis intact. Instead you pulled a snippet that makes no sense out of context.

You have absolutely nothing to say about his actual position. If you did, you would respond to it.

[edsheppa]

... would definitively falsify Darwinism

... as a complete theory of the origin of the species (just helping, you left that part out.)

[edsheppa]

In which of those (and where in it) can I read the argument?

[GodGunsGuts]

Don’t you get it, even on your own/darwinist terms, the time allowed for a genome to evolve into something “nearly as complex as the human genome” has just shrunk by one-fifth! The probability of that happening by chance within such a limited time period = ZERO.

[GodGunsGuts]

This discovery means that, even on evolutionary terms, the time allowed for a genome to “evolve” into something “nearly as complex” as the humane genome has just shrunk by one-fifth! The probability of that happening is nil. I suggest you read the following, and then go back and re-read the OP:

http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=155

[UndauntedR]

LAMARCKISM REVISITED

First, this isn't really Lamarckism. Lamarckism was a competing theory to Darwinian evolution based on heritability of acquired characteristics. The prime example being the giraffe stretching its neck every generation resulting in longer necked offspring. DNA and Mendialian genetics were unknown when this theory was popular, so it seemed reasonable (except when extrapolated to more ridiculous conclusions, i.e. loss of limbs). The reason I hinted at Lamarckism is because it would imply a direction to evolution based on individual desire, which is obviously in conflict with natural genetic variation. You seemed to have latched on to the keyword Larmarckism and ran with it though without having a thorough understanding.

Second, this is a far cry from being unattributable to genetic variance. In fact, the article explains *exactly* what is happening in the genetics to cause the morphological differences: "The methyl groups bound to a transposon at the 5' end of the agouti locus, thereby shutting off expression of the agouti gene, not just in the murine recipient but in its offspring as well." This is precisely what you weren't supposed to show. A gene is being shut off which causes the distribution of fur pigmentation in the offspring to change. No huge surprise.

Now, pick one of these:
http://www.freewebs.com/oolon/SMOGGM.htm
Intelligent design has no explanation for these phenomena. A fish which doesn't need eyes has eyes that don't work? This is not a good design and your "theory" really has nothing to say about these. When *any* scientific theory fails to give an adequate explanation for any natural phenomena, we have no choice but to discard it and look for a better explanation. None of these cases are difficult in an evolutionary context.

[webstersII]

You remind me of a number of banned evos who posted here and continually called people who disagreed with them liars.

[GodGunsGuts]

True to Darwinist form, I knew you guys would try to Wesley out of this one. The whole point is that the mutation was caused by the environment (the opposite of random mutation + natural selection) and was passed on to the offspring. This is the antithesis of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, and absolutely meets the qualification you laid down for falsifying the Darwinian ToE.

[UndauntedR]

True to Darwinist form

And true to IDist form, you label your opponent, ignore all arguments made by him, and attack a straw man of evolution.

The whole point is that the mutation was caused by the environment

First, methylation is not mutation. The article stated this explicitly, but you didn't read it: "...despite the fact that all offspring inherited exactly the same agouti gene (i.e., with no nucleotide differences), mice who received supplements had offspring with mostly brown fur..." Methylation only acts to control the level of gene expression. Methylation of the promoter of a gene will often lead to silencing that gene (by blocking DNA transcriptase). Alternatively, hypomethylation can cause over-expression of genes (e.g. oncogenes in human cancer). The reason the article was interesting was that they found a simple environmental factor which regulated the gene's expression via epigenetics (DNA methylation, which is inheritable). Again, this is not Lamarckism, but I'll let you figure out why.

(the opposite of random mutation + natural selection)

Any inheritable change in genetic expression is an evolutionary mechanism (not just random mutation - of which there are many types as well). For example, paramutation, bookmarking, imprinting, gene silencing, position effect, methylation, transvection, carcinogenesis, and histone and heterochromatin modifications all affect gene expression but do not change the actual DNA.

I also noticed that you avoided applying ID to some of the examples provided by nature. What kind of theory provides no answers when challenged?

[edsheppa]

So I looked at it and nowhere do I see the argument, starting with ID that concludes informational structures beyond the inherent abilities of blind natural forces and random chance will be found, which your post claimed was a prediction of ID.

I am truly interested. I think there's an obvious argument why the statement cannot be derived from any reasonable ID theory and I'd therefore like to see why you think otherwise. So please, instead of pointing me to pages that don't bear on the question, just post the argument in your own words.

PS, I don't know what the "OP" is.

PPS, that ICR article you linked is riddled with typical creationist sophistry. I hope you don't actually find it persuasive.

[shuckmaster]

But, you still don’t answer the question.

[webstersII]

“Finding fossils sorted in the strata according to density rather than in a pattern that supports descent with modification. That would be good evidence against evolution.”

Actually, you are only half right.

Any evidence which shows other than a pattern of descent with modification in the fossil record would serve to falsify. Fossils wouldn’t necessarily have to be sorted by density, it would just have to be any fossil data which show other than a pattern of many unsuccessful mutations and a few successful mutations over a relatively long period of time. That’s why the discussion of the Cambrian “explosion” (yes, I know many don’t like to call it that, but that’s the simplest way to refer to it) is relevant to falsification of the TOE.

[js1138]

Don’t you get it, even on your own/Darwinist terms, the time allowed for a genome to evolve into something “nearly as complex as the human genome”

How do you measure complexity?

I know of no mathematical characteristic of the human genome that makes it significantly more complex than that of an amoeba. Genes are just parameters. Humans don't have significantly more parameters than other living things. Evolution just tweaks parameters a one or two at a time. In engineering, this is called Muntzing.

[js1138]

That’s why the discussion of the Cambrian “explosion” (yes, I know many don’t like to call it that, but that’s the simplest way to refer to it) is relevant to falsification of the TOE.

A Cambrian mammal would cause a major upheaval in biology, but the Cambrian "explosion" is looking more and more like a dud. This is an era with few hard parts to be preserved by ordinary fossilization, so the things we find seem to appear suddenly. This picture is changing with DNA analysis.

[js1138]

You remind me of a number of banned evos who posted here and continually called people who disagreed with them liars.

This is a management decision by FR. It does not change the fact that quote mining and misquotation are lying, nor does it change the fact that creationists like Ken Ham destroy children's' minds with their lies.

[GodGunsGuts]

==How do you measure complexity?

I was merely quoting a Science Daily article on the sea anemone genome. This just goes to shoe that the genome was already as complex as modern day humans even BEFORE the Cambrian explosion. This, of course, comes as no surprise to the Creation Scientist, as he is already well aware that all living things were created with their current complexity built-in (fully formed and fully functional). Here is the Science Daily quote in full:

“The first analysis of the genome of the sea anemone shows it to be nearly as complex as the human genome, providing major insights into the common ancestor of not only humans and sea anemones, but of nearly all multi-celled animals.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070705153000.htm

[js1138]

I was merely quoting a Science Daily article on the sea anemone genome. This just goes to shoe that the genome was already as complex as modern day humans even BEFORE the Cambrian explosion.

I have no problem with that, to an order of magnitude or so. This has been known for some time. Evolution is mostly bit changes to parameters.

The period since the Cambrian is one-seventh of the history of life. Virtually everything prior has been erased. Why should it be surprising that more happened in three billion years than in 500 million?

[js1138]

Putting my question another way: suppose you gave a test of general knowledge to people aged 60 and again at age 70.

Suppose you discovered that most of what people know at age 70, they already knew at age 60.

Would you call that “front-loading”?

[GodGunsGuts]

==I have no problem with that, to an order of magnitude or so. This has been known for some time. Evolution is mostly bit changes to parameters.

Then, as Darwin predicted, there should be innumerable transitional species...billions and billions of them...and yet there are none. The evidence overwhelmingly points towards Creation, and against Darwinian evolution. Or as Arthur Strahler (evolutionist in good standing) admits:

“...(the creationist) finds all the confession he needs from the evolutionists that each of these classes appears suddenly and with no trace of ancestors. The absence of the transitional fossils in the gaps between each group of fishes and its ancestor is repeated in standard treatises on vertebrate evolution...This is one count in the creationists’ charge that can only evoke in unison from the paleontologists a plea of nolo contendre.”

Strahler, Arthur N. 1987. “Science and Earth History: The evolution/creation controversy”, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. p. 408

[js1138]

Give me a good reason, based on the physics and chemistry of fossilization, why every part of every individual should be preserved.

Do you think, for example, that there are naturally preserved specimens of every stage in the evolution from wolf to teacup poodle? This has happened within the time of recorded history, and the morphological changes are greater than any gap in the fossil record.

Morphological change requires that a few individuals get cut off from the parent population. Changes equivalent to the changes in dogs can occur in a thousand years or less. There is little chance for this transition to be recorded.

Now for those Young Earthers out there lurking, creationists like Ham assert that current species are descended from a few hundred “types” over the last few thousand years — a rate of evolution that vastly exceeds anything claimed by biologists. If the divergence from generic cat to all the existing cat species occurred in a few thousand years, where are the transitionals?