Carnivorous bog plant features smallest genome to date

If you post the theory of evolution I cannot say anything but “Thank you, it’s about time and I was obviously ignorant.” However that will never happen cuz you have nothing but your bluff. I did not ask for people talking about it as if it exists. I did not ask for a statement of the theory of evolution. Joe

What about all the ‘theories’ I listed.

Jerad, I asked for something very specific. What you posted talks about the alleged theories but doesn't get down to it. Also natural selection has proven to be impotent and most of what you posted pertains to natural selection. Not really. For one he argued against a strawman. And for another natural selection has proven to be impotent.

I know you think so.

It is a fact that Darwin argued against a strawman. And it is also a fact that natural selection is impotent.

But, again, a lot of people who actually study and do research into these issues disagree.

Great, when they have the supporting evidence please come back and tell us about it.

You just asked for a statement of the theory of evolution.

No, Jerad. I asked for the and you have failed, again, as usual.theory.

But it is anti-natural selection, genetic drift and sexual selection? Be honest

Jerad, you are sick as all of that was explained in the essay you didn't read. Natural selection exists, it just doesn't do what Darwin thought. Drift exists but again it doesn't do what you need. Sexual selection exists but yours cannot explain sexual reproduction.

Except for you and some of your ilk the theory of evolution has the same kind of hard data support. If you can’t be bothered to look up the 150 of data then I’m not going to waste my time spoon-feeding it to you.

BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA- You are a bluffer and a liar, Jerad.

A false objection since ID has even less of a clue but ducks and hides when anyone points that out

LoL! The only way to the answer is through ID. Yours is obstructing progress.

You seem terribly ignorant of how far biological research has progressed.

Spoken like the coward you are. You are pathetic.

You think detecting design is enough and then spend the rest of your time trying to punch holes in modern evolutionary theory.

You think your false accusations and ignorance mean something. I find that amusing. Joe

Jerad, you don't deny that evidence of Design is increasing do you? Natural explanations are starting to be formulated: http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/02/29/theres-a-new-law-in-physics-and-it-changes-everything/ It won't be long before people will think "how silly the idea of no design". "How did people ever believe no design." ppolish

Jerad, you don't deny that evidence of Design is increasing do you? Natural explanations are starting to be formulated: http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/02/29/theres-a-new-law-in-physics-and-it-changes-everything/ It won't be long before people will think "how silly the idea of no design". "How did people ever believe no design." ppolish

ppolish #121

Jerad, Scientific Evidence continues to pour in indicating Design. Mountains of it. Open your eyes and more importantly your brain. Science is cool. Theory of Oops is failing. The debate is becoming whether the Design is Natural or Unnatural. The “Appearance of Design” crowd are looking sillier as the days and months pass. Hopefully the new year will bring you some understanding. It’s awesome:)

I hope you have a wonderous Christmas and New Year. I can't promise to change my view in the new year but I am trying to listen!! And, I do disagree with you. But we do not need to argue over old issues. Not over Christmas. Jerad

Jerad, Scientific Evidence continues to pour in indicating Design. Mountains of it. Open your eyes and more importantly your brain. Science is cool. Theory of Oops is failing. The debate is becoming whether the Design is Natural or Unnatural. The "Appearance of Design" crowd are looking sillier as the days and months pass. Hopefully the new year will bring you some understanding. It's awesome:) ppolish

Joe #118, 119

So you do hide behind others. Did you realize that the scientists you hide behind don’t have any explanations as to the origins of the universe, the laws of nature and the origin of our solar system?

Actually, I have heard some very speculative hypotheses (I won't call them theories) about the origins of the universe. Entertaining but just ideas at this point. The origins of the solar system are more predictable because we have now observed the formation of solar systems and the physics are fairly well understood.

Disagree all you want. That you can’t even produce a testable hypothesis for natural selection creating a bacterial flagellum is enough for us to know you are bluffing.

What about all the 'theories' I listed. Any of them trip your politeness trigger?

Not really. For one he argued against a strawman. And for another natural selection has proven to be impotent.

I know you think so. But, again, a lot of people who actually study and do research into these issues disagree. You really should fess up and be honest Joe about your views. You think that ID is compatible with evolution because you think all the mutations were directed. So, from a molecular level you still get universal common descent. What you don't get is natural selection or sexual selection or genetic drift. Now, each of these ideas has been initially rejected and villified by biologists. There is nothing wrong with questioning new ideas. But now they and natural selection are well understood and established. So, if that's the part of evolutionary theory you are disputing then please be clear and honest. And tell us what your alternative hypothesis is.

Wikipedia did not offer up the theory. Natural selection has proven to be impotent- it wasn’t really a theory. Science requires measurements, Jerad. And Futuyma talks a lot but never references the actual theory. He also thinks bald declarations pass for science. For example he sez that natural selection is the only process known to produce adaptations. Yet we don’t know any such thing.

You just asked for a statement of the theory of evolution. I did try. Now you're shifting the goalposts.

And yes, Jerad, evolution is just change over time. That is why no one is debating evolution. Intelligent Design is NOT anti-evolution

But it is anti-natural selection, genetic drift and sexual selection? Be honest.

I asked for the theory of evolution, not people talking about it as if it exists. People talk about bigfoot too. People talk about alien abductions, the Loch Ness monster- all sorts of things. Scientific theories require measurements, equations- stuff that can actually be tested against reality. Look at Einstein’s relativity papers for examples.

Except for you and some of your ilk the theory of evolution has the same kind of hard data support. If you can't be bothered to look up the 150 of data then I'm not going to waste my time spoon-feeding it to you.

We don’t know what makes an organism what it is. We don’t know how many mutations it takes to build a new protein complex. We don’t have equations for it.

A false objection since ID has even less of a clue but ducks and hides when anyone points that out. Shame on you.

And that could be any number of things including a loss of function- for example blind cave fish. A survival boost can come from being taller, shorter, longer, thinner, fatter, slower, faster, better sight, no sight, better hearing, no hearing, color, no color, legs, no legs- it is a huge whatever.

Of course!! But lots and lots of those effects/influences are being investigated and added to the big picture. C'mon Joe, try and keep up!!

That is false and demonstrates ignorance of how sexual reproduction works. Also what made their parents successful may not be enough to make their offspring who did inherit the advantageous trait more successful also.

You shout everyone else down but when we ask you for an alternative you are strangely silent. Why is that? Where is your explanation?

Over time the environment changes and what was once an advantage may become a detriment.

Yes, that can happen. You seem terribly ignorant of how far biological research has progressed. I don't mind being your whipping boy, up to a point at least. But surely you all must acknowledge that ID has no process or history or pattern or explanation to work with. You think detecting design is enough and then spend the rest of your time trying to punch holes in modern evolutionary theory. Do some work, come up with a model that you can all defend and back. (I know this is not going to happen and that (probably) no one will even respond to this encouragement. But it is true: ID has very little to grab onto. And if you're serious that it is a serious scientific endeavour and not just a way to get God back into culture then you should do some scientific work and stop bitching and moaning about those whose disagree with you.) Jerad

Wikipedia did not offer up the theory. Natural selection has proven to be impotent- it wasn't really a theory. Science requires measurements, Jerad. And Futuyma talks a lot but never references the actual theory. He also thinks bald declarations pass for science. For example he sez that natural selection is the only process known to produce adaptations. Yet we don't know any such thing. And yes, Jerad, evolution is just change over time. That is why no one is debating evolution. Intelligent Design is NOT anti-evolution I asked for the theory of evolution, not people talking about it as if it exists. People talk about bigfoot too. People talk about alien abductions, the Loch Ness monster- all sorts of things. Scientific theories require measurements, equations- stuff that can actually be tested against reality. Look at Einstein's relativity papers for examples. We don't know what makes an organism what it is. We don't know how many mutations it takes to build a new protein complex. We don't have equations for it.

Darwin could see that if individuals must compete, and if they are all unique, some individuals will have variations which give them a survival boost so they will have more opportunity to reproduce and leave a greater number of offspring.

And that could be any number of things including a loss of function- for example blind cave fish. A survival boost can come from being taller, shorter, longer, thinner, fatter, slower, faster, better sight, no sight, better hearing, no hearing, color, no color, legs, no legs- it is a huge whatever.

These offspring will inherit the variations which made their parents successful, so they too will have an advantage.

That is false and demonstrates ignorance of how sexual reproduction works. Also what made their parents successful may not be enough to make their offspring who did inherit the advantageous trait more successful also.

Over time these successful variations will spread through the population – the population will change: that is evolution!

Over time the environment changes and what was once an advantage may become a detriment.

Simple, isn’t it?

When one ignores reality all is simple. Joe

Jerad:

When it gets accepted by most of the Physicists call me.

So you do hide behind others. Did you realize that the scientists you hide behind don't have any explanations as to the origins of the universe, the laws of nature and the origin of our solar system?

In your opinion. I disagree with you.

Disagree all you want. That you can't even produce a testable hypothesis for natural selection creating a bacterial flagellum is enough for us to know you are bluffing.

Darwin made a good start of it.

Not really. For one he argued against a strawman. And for another natural selection has proven to be impotent. Joe

"A few words need to be said about the "theory of evolution," which most people take to mean the proposition that organisms have evolved from common ancestors. In everyday speech, "theory" often means a hypothesis or even a mere speculation. But in science, "theory" means "a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed." as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. The theory of evolution is a body of interconnected statements about natural selection and the other processes that are thought to cause evolution, just as the atomic theory of chemistry and the Newtonian theory of mechanics are bodies of statements that describe causes of chemical and physical phenomena. In contrast, the statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors--the historical reality of evolution--is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth's revolution about the sun. Like the heliocentric solar system, evolution began as a hypothesis, and achieved "facthood" as the evidence in its favor became so strong that no knowledgeable and unbiased person could deny its reality. No biologist today would think of submitting a paper entitled "New evidence for evolution;" it simply has not been an issue for a century." - Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2nd ed., 1986, Sinauer Associates, p. 15 Jerad

From The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: "THE AFFINITIES of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct species . . . The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was small, budding twigs; and this connexion of the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups . . . From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off, and these lost branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only from having been found in a fossil state . . . As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications" Jerad

This is a bit chatty but nice: http://darwin200.christs.cam.ac.uk/pages/index.php?page_id=d3 Natural Selection Natural selection is Darwin’s most famous theory; it states that evolutionary change comes through the production of variation in each generation and differential survival of individuals with different combinations of these variable characters. Individuals with characteristics which increase their probability of survival will have more opportunities to reproduce and their offspring will also benefit from the heritable, advantageous character. So over time these variants will spread through the population. Natural Selection In The Evolutionary Framework: For natural selection to work, it has to occur along with a bunch of other things. Historians and biologists who have analysed Darwin’s work, for example Ernst Mayr, have identified five theories which Darwin outlined in On the Origin of Species, and which work together to bring about evolution. Darwin’s five theories were: Evolution: species come and go through time, while they exist they change. Common descent: organisms are descended from one, or several common ancestors and have diversified from this original stock Species multiply: the diversification of life involves populations of one species diverging until they become two separate species; this has probably occurred billions of times on earth! Gradualism: evolutionary change occurs through incremental small changes within populations; new species are not created suddenly. Natural selection: evolutionary change occurs through variation between individuals; some variants give the individual an extra survival probability. Darwin considered all these theories as parts of one grand idea; they all occur together. Scientists however took a while to see this; they weren’t accepted as a package until the modern synthesis of the 1930/40s. Before then scientists would favour some ideas but propose alternatives to fill in the gaps, natural selection was one of the least popular, to find out why click here. Eventually, as more evidence accumulated and these different ideas were tested it became clear that Darwin was right all along! How Does Natural Selection Work? Natural selection was Darwin’s most novel and revolutionary idea, but in truth (like all the best ideas) it is very simple. Despite its simplicity, since the publication of the theory right up until today, it has widely been misunderstood. Ernst Mayr, in his book One Long Argument (1991) provides a useful way of breaking down the process into just five facts and three inferences, or conclusions, drawn from the five facts; they can be linked in a flow diagram: Figure: modified from One Long Argument by Ernst Mayr (1991) The first inference is drawn from three facts which Darwin observed in the natural world around him. He saw that organisms produce more offspring than is required to replace themselves, so population sizes should increase rapidly (think about the number of frogspawn laid each year, or how many eggs a spider lays). That’s fact one: a fancy word for this over-reproduction is ‘super fecundity’. However Darwin saw for himself, and confirmed his observation with others, that population numbers tend to stay at about the same level (you don’t see a doubling of the number of frogs or mice in your garden each year do you?): that’s fact two. What accounts for this disparity? Darwin found the answer with another fact: resources, such as food, water or places to sleep or mate, are limited. A major influence on Darwin observing this fact was his reading the work of Thomas Malthus who published a paper stating that the human population was increasing at a rapid pace and would soon run out of food, water and space. These are three simple facts which Darwin put together to draw a simple conclusion: individuals compete with each other for scarce resources. Next, Darwin made two other observations about individuals. First he had come to the conclusion through his work on the H.M.S. Beagle, when he was working on barnacles and later pigeons, that individuals are unique and that individuals vary in almost every aspect: that’s fact four, and you only need to take a cursory glance round a group of people to see that it is true! Finally fact five: Darwin had taken to breeding pigeons to investigate variability further. He performed many crosses between different breeds of fancy pigeons to look at whether their offspring had the same variations. He also collected lots of observations from various animal and plant breeders to help him draw out the conclusion that these individual differences are heritable: they are passed on from parent to offspring. The next two inferences demonstrate Darwin’s genius. Darwin could see that if individuals must compete, and if they are all unique, some individuals will have variations which give them a survival boost so they will have more opportunity to reproduce and leave a greater number of offspring. These offspring will inherit the variations which made their parents successful, so they too will have an advantage. Over time these successful variantions will spread through the population – the population will change: that is evolution! Simple, isn’t it? Jerad

This is from an anti-Darwin site (http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/) but apparently they do think there is a theory of evolution: Darwin's Theory of Evolution is the widely held notion that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor: the birds and the bananas, the fishes and the flowers -- all related. Darwin's general theory presumes the development of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) "descent with modification". That is, complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. In a nutshell, as random genetic mutations occur within an organism's genetic code, the beneficial mutations are preserved because they aid survival -- a process known as "natural selection." These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation. Over time, beneficial mutations accumulate and the result is an entirely different organism (not just a variation of the original, but an entirely different creature). Jerad

This is from the BBC: The basic idea behind the theory of evolution is that all the different species have evolved from simple life forms. These simple life forms first developed more than 3 billion years ago (the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old). The theory of evolution states that evolution happens by natural selection. The key points are that: individuals in a species show a wide range of variation this variation is because of differences in their genes individuals with characteristics most suited to the environment are more likely to survive and reproduce the genes that allow these individuals to be successful are passed to their offspring Individuals that are poorly adapted to their environment are less likely to survive and reproduce. This means that their genes are less likely to be passed to the next generation. Given enough time, a species will gradually evolve. You need to remember that variation can be caused by both genes and the environment. But it is only variation caused by genes that can be passed on to the next generation. Jerad

How about this then: Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins. All life on Earth is descended from a last universal ancestor that lived approximately 3.8-3.5 billion years ago. Repeated speciation and the divergence of life can be inferred from shared sets of biochemical and morphological traits, or by sequencing shared DNA sequences] These homologous traits and sequences are more similar among species that share a more recent common ancestor, and can be used to reconstruct evolutionary histories, using both existing species and the fossil record. Existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped both by speciation and by extinction. Charles Darwin was the first to formulate a scientific argument for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Evolution by natural selection is a process inferred from three facts about populations: 1) more offspring are produced than can possibly survive, 2) traits vary among individuals, leading to different rates of survival and reproduction, and 3) trait differences are heritable. Thus, when members of a population die they are replaced by the progeny of parents better adapted to survive and reproduce in the environment in which natural selection takes place. This process creates and preserves traits that are seemingly fitted for the functional roles they perform. Natural selection is the only known cause of adaptation, but not the only known cause of evolution. Other, nonadaptive causes of evolution include mutation and genetic drift. In the early 20th century, genetics was integrated with Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection through the discipline of population genetics. The importance of natural selection as a cause of evolution was accepted into other branches of biology. Moreover, previously held notions about evolution, such as orthogenesis and "progress" became obsolete. Scientists continue to study various aspects of evolution by forming and testing hypotheses, constructing scientific theories, using observational data, and performing experiments in both the field and the laboratory. Biologists agree that descent with modification is one of the most reliably established facts in science. Discoveries in evolutionary biology have made a significant impact not just within the traditional branches of biology, but also in other academic disciplines (e.g., anthropology and psychology) and on society at large. (That's from Wikipedia) Jerad

BA77 #109

As far as evidence goes, An elephant could sit on your chest and you would still deny the existence of elephants as long as it suited your philosophical bias.

I just disagree with you BA. No need to get snotty. Joe #110

Scientists have presented the evidence and the reasoning.

When it gets accepted by most of the Physicists call me.

Hypocrite- you buy evolutionism even though it has nothing.

In your opinion. I disagree with you.

You can’t, so shut up already. You can’t say who the author was. You can’t say when it was published and you can’t say where it is.

Darwin made a good start of it.

I you post the theory of evolution I cannot say anything but “Thank you, it’s about time and I was obviously ignorant.” However that will never happen cuz you have nothing but your bluff.

I'll think about it. It's tempting to see if I can get a polite response from you instead of the usual abuse. Jerad

Jerad:

I’d say there was zero evidence from Physics and cosmology but that’s just me.

Scientists have presented the evidence and the reasoning.

I ain’t buyin’ none of that ’til they get some real, hard data.

Hypocrite- you buy evolutionism even though it has nothing.

I’m not going to bother because after trying many times I relise that you just decry whatever I post. So, no point really.

You can't, so shut up already. You can't say who the author was. You can't say when it was published and you can't say where it is. I you post the theory of evolution I cannot say anything but "Thank you, it's about time and I was obviously ignorant." However that will never happen cuz you have nothing but your bluff. Joe

"I’d say there was zero evidence from Physics and cosmology but that’s just me. And not because I’m a multi-verse fan either. I ain’t buyin’ none of that ’til they get some real, hard data." As far as evidence goes, An elephant could sit on your chest and you would still deny the existence of elephants as long as it suited your philosophical bias. bornagain77

Jerad:

This is why further discussions are pointless really.

Yes, your bluff has been called and you have nothing left.

I would be very interested in discussing some of your speculations on design implementation timings.

I don't have any.

You gotta speculate, have a guess to come up with a hypothesis that you can test after all.

We have and that is how we have determined intelligent design is present.

AND you’ve had the same data the ‘Darwinists’ have had and they’re publishing masses of stuff.

Nothing to do with unguided/ blind watchmaker evolution, of course.

Lots and lots of research going on.

And it seems to support ID. Go figure.

Hmm . . . that reference is a) over 30 years old...

It still holds. How old is Pythagorean's theorems?

and b) I’m not sure it says what you think/imply it says.

Make your case if you can.

If I were you, I’d look for a bit more that’s a bit more current.

I have looked and there isn't anything. To date no one knows what makes an organism what it is. To date we know that tinkering with developmental genes is either fatal or causes deformities.

It’s tested every time a genome gets sequenced.

Common design is tested every time a genome gets sequenced Joe

Joe #105

The evidence for ID from physics is independent of the evidence for ID from biology which is independent from the evidence for ID from cosmology, etc.

I'd say there was zero evidence from Physics and cosmology but that's just me. And not because I'm a multi-verse fan either. I ain't buyin' none of that 'til they get some real, hard data.

And why is it that no one can reference this alleged “modern evolutionary theory” so we can see what it really says?

I'm not going to bother because after trying many times I relise that you just decry whatever I post. So, no point really. Jerad

Joe #104

Except there isn’t any such evidence. No one even knows what makes an organism what it is. And that means no one knows if there is a mechanism capable of such a thing as universal common descent.

This is why further discussions are pointless really. We're all heard each time after time after time. I would be very interested in discussing some of your speculations on design implementation timings. Nothing to be held accountable to. Nothing to make fun of. Just some speculation. You gotta speculate, have a guess to come up with a hypothesis that you can test after all. AND you've had the same data the 'Darwinists' have had and they're publishing masses of stuff. Lots and lots of research going on. No harm in having a discussion about what ID research might find is there?

So even if differing accumulations of genetic changes were up to the task they appear to be stuck by reality. IOW there isn’t any genetic/ genomic data that supports universal common descent. The claim cannot be tested.

Hmm . . . that reference is a) over 30 years old and b) I'm not sure it says what you think/imply it says. That is: I doubt the authors would agree with your interpretation of one paragraph. If I were you, I'd look for a bit more that's a bit more current. It's tested every time a genome gets sequenced. Could be that tomorrow a new genetic code is found or a creature who shares nothing with what we perceive its ancestors to be. It could happen. Each new genome is a test. Jerad

Jerad:

Yes, especially given that there is no independent evidence of a designer.

The evidence for ID from physics is independent of the evidence for ID from biology which is independent from the evidence for ID from cosmology, etc. And why is it that no one can reference this alleged "modern evolutionary theory" so we can see what it really says? Joe

Jerad:

I find the evidence supporting universal common descent with modification via natural processes to be more than sufficient.

Except there isn't any such evidence. No one even knows what makes an organism what it is. And that means no one knows if there is a mechanism capable of such a thing as universal common descent. Also, there is this:

Loci that are obviously variable within natural populations do not seem to lie at the basis of many major adaptive changes, while those loci that seemingly do constitute the foundation of many if not most major adaptive changes are not variable.- John McDonald, “The Molecular Basis of Adaptation: A Critical Review of Relevant Ideas and Observation”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics: 14, 1983, p77-102

So even if differing accumulations of genetic changes were up to the task they appear to be stuck by reality. IOW there isn't any genetic/ genomic data that supports universal common descent. The claim cannot be tested. Joe

bornagain77: The original species had a greater genetic potential to adapt to all possible environments. That doesn't explain spontaneous polyploidy. Nor does it explain why onions have retained a much larger genome than Einstein, or why genome size varies so much even in closely related organisms. bornagain77: MENDEL’S ACCOUNTANT: J. SANFORD†, J. BAUMGARDNER‡, W. BREWER§, P. GIBSON¶, AND W. REMINE Mendel's Accountant has a bug which virtually eliminates the effects of natural selection. Zachriel

"and an ever growing collection of experimental/lab data." Really??? I waiting for the first seed of experimental/lab data to sprout. bornagain77

A. L. Hughes's New Non-Darwinian Mechanism of Adaption Was Discovered and Published in Detail by an ID Geneticist 25 Years Ago - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig - December 2011 Excerpt: The original species had a greater genetic potential to adapt to all possible environments. In the course of time this broad capacity for adaptation has been steadily reduced in the respective habitats by the accumulation of slightly deleterious alleles (as well as total losses of genetic functions redundant for a habitat), with the exception, of course, of that part which was necessary for coping with a species' particular environment....By mutative reduction of the genetic potential, modifications became "heritable". -- As strange as it may at first sound, however, this has nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characteristics. For the characteristics were not acquired evolutionarily, but existed from the very beginning due to the greater adaptability. In many species only the genetic functions necessary for coping with the corresponding environment have been preserved from this adaptability potential. The "remainder" has been lost by mutations (accumulation of slightly disadvantageous alleles) -- in the formation of secondary species. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/a_l_hughess_new053881.html Genetic Entropy - Dr. John Sanford - Evolution vs. Reality - video (Notes in description) http://vimeo.com/35088933 It is also extremely interesting to note, the principle of Genetic Entropy, which stands in direct opposition to the primary claim of neo-Darwinian evolution, lends itself quite well to mathematical analysis by computer simulation: Using Computer Simulation to Understand Mutation Accumulation Dynamics and Genetic Load: Excerpt: We apply a biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program to study human mutation accumulation under a wide-range of circumstances.,, Our numerical simulations consistently show that deleterious mutations accumulate linearly across a large portion of the relevant parameter space. http://bioinformatics.cau.edu.cn/lecture/chinaproof.pdf MENDEL’S ACCOUNTANT: J. SANFORD†, J. BAUMGARDNER‡, W. BREWER§, P. GIBSON¶, AND W. REMINE http://mendelsaccount.sourceforge.net Whereas, neo-Darwinian evolution has no rigorous mathematical foundation with which we can rigorously analyze it in any computer simulation; in any supposed 'Evolutionary Algorithm': "Darwin or Design" with Dr. Tom Woodward with guest Dr. Robert J. Marks II - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoj9xo0YsOQ bornagain77

BA77 #99

Jerad, feel free to provide any evidence whatsoever of unguided Darwinian processes producing any non-trivial functional complexity/information. I’ve been waiting a long, long time. ,,, For someone who believes as strongly as you do that unguided processes can produce brains that are far more complex than the entire internet combined, your hesitation to flood me with observational evidence of unguided processes producing anything of significance is telling. Moreover, if you subtract non-random cell-mediated processes (J. Shapiro Natural Genetic Engineering), which should rightly be done if we wanted to see what purely material processes can accomplish, your evidence becomes even more desperately impoverished!

I find the evidence supporting universal common descent with modification via natural processes to be more than sufficient. That's including the fossils, the genomic data, the morphological data, the bio-geographic species distributions and an ever growing collection of experimental/lab data. And I know you don't. Not much else to say really. No matter what study or research I link to you'll address it with another link-fest, most of which will probably be videos or blog posts produced by members or good friends of the Discovery Institute. If you really want to talk to me then just talk. You don't need to try and buy me with links.

ID has far more explanatory power than you imagine it does, whereas neo-Darwinism is useless as a heuristic in science:

You say that but when I ask ID supporters to 'explain' some aspect of speciation they usually don't even bother to acknowledge the question. Why is that do you think? Jerad

Jerad, feel free to provide any evidence whatsoever of unguided Darwinian processes producing any non-trivial functional complexity/information. I've been waiting a long, long time. ,,, For someone who believes as strongly as you do that unguided processes can produce brains that are far more complex than the entire internet combined, your hesitation to flood me with observational evidence of unguided processes producing anything of significance is telling. Moreover, if you subtract non-random cell-mediated processes (J. Shapiro Natural Genetic Engineering), which should rightly be done if we wanted to see what purely material processes can accomplish, your evidence becomes even more desperately impoverished! ID has far more explanatory power than you imagine it does, whereas neo-Darwinism is useless as a heuristic in science: Science owes nothing to Darwinism – Jonathan Wells https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/science-owes-nothing-to-darwinism-jonathan-wells/ “Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.,,, In the peer-reviewed literature, the word “evolution” often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for “evolution” some other word – “Buddhism,” “Aztec cosmology,” or even “creationism.” I found that the substitution never touched the paper’s core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.” Philip S. Skell – (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.discovery.org/a/2816 "It has become clear in the past ten years that the concept of design is not merely an add-on meta-description of biological systems, of no scientific consequence, but is in fact a driver of science. A whole cohort of young scientists is being trained to “think like engineers” when looking at biological systems, using terms explicitly related to engineering design concepts: design, purpose, optimal tradeoffs for multiple goals, information, control, decision making, etc. This approach is widely seen as a successful, predictive, quantitative theory of biology." David Snoke*, Systems Biology as a Research Program for Intelligent Design podcast: "David Snoke: Systems Biology and Intelligent Design, pt. 1" http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-11T17_19_09-07_00 podcast: David Snoke: Systems Biology and Intelligent Design, pt. 2 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-13T16_30_01-07_00 How the Burgeoning Field of Systems Biology Supports Intelligent Design - July 2014 Excerpt: Snoke lists various features in biology that have been found to function like goal-directed, top-down engineered systems: *"Negative feedback for stable operation." *"Frequency filtering" for extracting a signal from a noisy system. *Control and signaling to induce a response. *"Information storage" where information is stored for later use. In fact, Snoke observes: "This paradigm [of systems biology] is advancing the view that biology is essentially an information science with information operating on multiple hierarchical levels and in complex networks [13]. " *"Timing and synchronization," where organisms maintain clocks to ensure that different processes and events happen in the right order. *"Addressing," where signaling molecules are tagged with an address to help them arrive at their intended target. *"Hierarchies of function," where organisms maintain clocks to ensure that cellular processes and events happen at the right times and in the right order. *"Redundancy," as organisms contain backup systems or "fail-safes" if primary essential systems fail. *"Adaptation," where organisms are pre-engineered to be able to undergo small-scale adaptations to their environments. As Snoke explains, "These systems use randomization controlled by supersystems, just as the immune system uses randomization in a very controlled way," and "Only part of the system is allowed to vary randomly, while the rest is highly conserved.",,, Snoke observes that systems biology assumes that biological features are optimized, meaning, in part, that "just about everything in the cell does indeed have a role, i.e., that there is very little 'junk.'" He explains, "Some systems biologists go further than just assuming that every little thing has a purpose. Some argue that each item is fulfilling its purpose as well as is physically possible," and quotes additional authorities who assume that biological systems are optimized.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/07/when_biologists087871.html bornagain77

BA77 #97

Jerad, oh but let’s do go over the evidence instead of just pretending I disagree with your interpretation shall we???

No point really is there? We've both been here long enough to knew each others' opinion inside and out. EXCEPT I don't know what kind of ID you support . . . all front loaded . . . lots of ongoing tinkering . . . non-random mutations. That would be interesting to talk about. Anyway, Dr Behe from UD and blog posts from the Discovery Institute are not evidence. Those have not been reviewed by people who know the field and can see if their reasoning is sound.

but You said there is ‘lots of evidence’ to support Neo-Darwinism. so can you please cite the exact laboratory experiments Dr. Behe and company have missed? Not only can they not find ‘lots’ of evidence, they can’t find any evidence period! Moreover, the observational evidence that we do have tells us that neo-Darwinism is false!

I'd have to go back and look up some of the many critical reviews of Dr Behe's publications but you could do that yourself if that's really what you want to know. If you're just trying to 'beat' me then I'm sorry, I'm not going to play that game.

That is the whole point. Darwinism is not a science with ANY observational evidence in the present to support its claims but is a pseudo-science that relies on imaginary ‘just so’ stories about what may have happened in the past so as to make it seem plausible.

I disagree. But I would like to add that, even if you disagree with it, evolutionary theory does, at least, attempt to explain why we some some aspects of life. ID hasn't really done that. Yet.

It is junk science supreme!

You are entitled to your severely minority opinion.

I’m glad you are at least starting to realize how incompatible your consciousness and free will are to your atheistic materialism.

Please don't put words in my mouth or make assumptions regarding what I believe. If you want to ask me question that's fine but I ask that I not be categorised. Jerad

Jerad, oh but let's do go over the evidence instead of just pretending I disagree with your interpretation shall we???

“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ Lenski's Long-Term Evolution Experiment: 25 Years and Counting - Michael Behe - November 21, 2013 Excerpt: Twenty-five years later the culture -- a cumulative total of trillions of cells -- has been going for an astounding 58,000 generations and counting. As the article points out, that's equivalent to a million years in the lineage of a large animal such as humans. Combined with an ability to track down the exact identities of bacterial mutations at the DNA level, that makes Lenski's project the best, most detailed source of information on evolutionary processes available anywhere,,, ,,,for proponents of intelligent design the bottom line is that the great majority of even beneficial mutations have turned out to be due to the breaking, degrading, or minor tweaking of pre-existing genes or regulatory regions (Behe 2010). There have been no mutations or series of mutations identified that appear to be on their way to constructing elegant new molecular machinery of the kind that fills every cell. For example, the genes making the bacterial flagellum are consistently turned off by a beneficial mutation (apparently it saves cells energy used in constructing flagella). The suite of genes used to make the sugar ribose is the uniform target of a destructive mutation, which somehow helps the bacterium grow more quickly in the laboratory. Degrading a host of other genes leads to beneficial effects, too.,,, - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/11/richard_lenskis079401.html Response to John Wise – October 2010 Excerpt: A technique called “saturation mutagenesis”1,2 has been used to produce every possible developmental mutation in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster),3,4,5 roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans),6,7 and zebrafish (Danio rerio),8,9,10 and the same technique is now being applied to mice (Mus musculus).11,12 None of the evidence from these and numerous other studies of developmental mutations supports the neo-Darwinian dogma that DNA mutations can lead to new organs or body plans–because none of the observed developmental mutations benefit the organism. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/10/response_to_john_wise038811.html etc.. etc..

but You said there is 'lots of evidence' to support Neo-Darwinism. so can you please cite the exact laboratory experiments Dr. Behe and company have missed? Not only can they not find 'lots' of evidence, they can't find any evidence period! Moreover, the observational evidence that we do have tells us that neo-Darwinism is false! That is the whole point. Darwinism is not a science with ANY observational evidence in the present to support its claims but is a pseudo-science that relies on imaginary 'just so' stories about what may have happened in the past so as to make it seem plausible. It is junk science supreme! I'm glad you are at least starting to realize how incompatible your consciousness and free will are to your atheistic materialism. bornagain77

BA77 #95

Jerad, you have no evidence that unguided processes can create any non-trivial functional complexity/information, not even a single protein, and we have plenty of evidence that conscious/intelligent beings can create functional complexity/information at will (even create proteins at great intellectual effort), and yet you believe unguided Darwinism to be the better explanation for something like, say, your brain?

I think there is lots of evidence to support modern evolutionary theory but there's no need to go over things you've already seen many times and have rejected. We'll just have to disagree.

Forgive me if I find your ‘opinion’ that Darwinism to be the better explanation for such jaw dropping integrated complexity to be lacking in credibility.

I'm not expecting you to agree with me or change your mind.

Or do you seriously consider Darwinism the better explanation for your own subjective conscious experience?

Yes, especially given that there is no independent evidence of a designer. I also find that ID lacks explanatory power in that it has not, as yet, gotten specific about at least the 'when's of design. I keep hearing from ID supporters that 'Darwinism' hasn't proved its case. But ID has done almost nothing except to claim certain things look designed. There's no method, there's no process, there's no pattern. How can ID be a better explanation when it doesn't explain anything except: some unknown and undefined designer did something sometime. That's not very satisfying or helpful.

i.e. Do you, like Coyne, believe that Jerad, as Jerad perceives himself to be, is merely a neuronal illusion?

That certainly isn't the way it feels. I'm not really sure what I think about that discussion. I think I'm very real. I have an extremely strong sense of self. But I do like to consider the data. I guess I'd have to say I'm severely on the fence on this one. I also know/feel that it's almost impossible NOT to operate from a free-will position. In fact, to be honest, I don't understand the point really. BUT, if the data comes through then . . . I'll do my best to take it into account. I do know that I much more fallible and mistaken than I'd like to think I am. I catch myself recreating memories or situation based on what I thought or wanted to be true. So, maybe, we are much less grounded in an objective reality than we think. It's interesting.

If so, why in blue blazes should I care what your illusion of self thinks is the best explanation of reality! On your materialistic premises you deny that you yourself are real.

You are under no obligation to take me seriously or to care about my opinion at all. I'm just responding to your posts now. Jerad

Jerad, you have no evidence that unguided processes can create any non-trivial functional complexity/information, not even a single protein, and we have plenty of evidence that conscious/intelligent beings can create functional complexity/information at will (even create proteins at great intellectual effort), and yet you believe unguided Darwinism to be the better explanation for something like, say, your brain?

Human brain has more switches than all computers on Earth - November 2010 Excerpt: They found that the brain's complexity is beyond anything they'd imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief, says Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of the paper describing the study: ...One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor--with both memory-storage and information-processing elements--than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20023112-247.html "Complexity Brake" Defies Evolution - August 8, 2012 Excerpt: Consider a neuronal synapse -- the presynaptic terminal has an estimated 1000 distinct proteins. Fully analyzing their possible interactions would take about 2000 years. Or consider the task of fully characterizing the visual cortex of the mouse -- about 2 million neurons. Under the extreme assumption that the neurons in these systems can all interact with each other, analyzing the various combinations will take about 10 million years..., even though it is assumed that the underlying technology speeds up by an order of magnitude each year. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/complexity_brak062961.html

Forgive me if I find your 'opinion' that Darwinism to be the better explanation for such jaw dropping integrated complexity to be lacking in credibility. Or do you seriously consider Darwinism the better explanation for your own subjective conscious experience?

Mind and Cosmos - Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False - Thomas Nagel Excerpt: If materialism cannot accommodate consciousness and other mind-related aspects of reality, then we must abandon a purely materialist understanding of nature in general, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199919758.do

i.e. Do you, like Coyne, believe that Jerad, as Jerad perceives himself to be, is merely a neuronal illusion? If so, why in blue blazes should I care what your illusion of self thinks is the best explanation of reality! On your materialistic premises you deny that you yourself are real.

The Confidence of Jerry Coyne - Ross Douthat - January 6, 2014 Excerpt: then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant:,,) Read more here: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_r=0 "Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God." —C.S. Lewis The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt:,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3

of related interest

A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - University of Wyoming - J. Budziszewski Excerpt page12: "There were two great holes in the argument about the irrelevance of God. The first is that in order to attack free will, I supposed that I understood cause and effect; I supposed causation to be less mysterious than volition. If anything, it is the other way around. I can perceive a logical connection between premises and valid conclusions. I can perceive at least a rational connection between my willing to do something and my doing it. But between the apple and the earth, I can perceive no connection at all. Why does the apple fall? We don't know. "But there is gravity," you say. No, "gravity" is merely the name of the phenomenon, not its explanation. "But there are laws of gravity," you say. No, the "laws" are not its explanation either; they are merely a more precise description of the thing to be explained, which remains as mysterious as before. For just this reason, philosophers of science are shy of the term "laws"; they prefer "lawlike regularities." To call the equations of gravity "laws" and speak of the apple as "obeying" them is to speak as though, like the traffic laws, the "laws" of gravity are addressed to rational agents capable of conforming their wills to the command. This is cheating, because it makes mechanical causality (the more opaque of the two phenomena) seem like volition (the less). In my own way of thinking the cheating was even graver, because I attacked the less opaque in the name of the more. The other hole in my reasoning was cruder. If my imprisonment in a blind causality made my reasoning so unreliable that I couldn't trust my beliefs, then by the same token I shouldn't have trusted my beliefs about imprisonment in a blind causality. But in that case I had no business denying free will in the first place." http://www.undergroundthomist.org/sites/default/files/WhyIAmNotAnAtheist.pdf A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - 2012 talk University of Wyoming J. Budziszewski http://veritas.org/talks/professors-journey-out-nihilism-why-i-am-not-atheist/?view=presenters&speaker_id=2231

bornagain77

BA77 #93

Jerad, your failure to be forthright with the unscientific, non-falsifiable, nature of Neo-Darwinism is noted. No where in your citation free post did you question the fact that Neo-Darwinism may in all likelihood be a false view of ‘reality’.

I don't see it that way so I don't address your issue. I don't think the modern evolutionary synthesis is a false view of 'reality'. I think it's a pretty good model that is being revised and added to all the time. I'm just offering my opinion. I'm not an expert nor am I pretending to be one. I find the arguments presented by biological scientists to be more compelling and, as far as I am able to evaluate them academically, sound. Additionally, when I've tried to find out what ID is really saying, looked into its 'research', read support and criticisms for it, I've found it thin and lacking rigour. AND there is an almost total lack of serious academic support. I don't buy into your conspiracy theories either.

Moreover, Matzke is free to write his detailed explanation for how molecular machines, that far surpass man-made molecular machines in engineering parameters, can arise by unguided processes anytime he wants and present for all to see and forever silence Intelligent Design proponents. The small little hitch with all that is is that molecular machines, that far surpass man-made molecular machines in engineering parameters, can NEVER arise by unguided processes.

Aside from the fact you can't prove a negative (duh), it hasn't been very long since we started exploring the ways material processes do modify and create molecular machines.

It is akin to believing in miracles minus the miracle maker! Which is exactly what Darwinists have wanted all along! i.e. The science free rhetoric of Darwinists has always been, at base, a religious argument from Darwinist against God!

If that's really your opinion then it explains a lot about your discourse at UD. I won't argue with you since you've already decided what true and what isn't. Jerad

Jerad, your failure to be forthright with the unscientific, non-falsifiable, nature of Neo-Darwinism is noted. No where in your citation free post did you question the fact that Neo-Darwinism may in all likelihood be a false view of 'reality'.

“In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.” Karl Popper – The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge “We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence ‘is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience;’ but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists.” Smith, Wolfgang (1988) Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of The Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Moreover, Matzke is free to write his detailed explanation for how molecular machines, that far surpass man-made machines in engineering parameters, can arise by unguided processes anytime he wants. And present the paper in any peer-reviewed, Darwinian controlled, outlet he wants for all to see, and forever silence Intelligent Design proponents. The small little hitch with all that is that molecular machines, that far surpass man-made machines in engineering parameters, can NEVER arise by unguided processes. It is akin to believing in miracles minus the miracle maker! Which is exactly what Darwinists have wanted all along! i.e. The science free rhetoric of Darwinists is now, and has always been, at base, a religious argument from Darwinist against God!

Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise's Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous "God-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way" arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do.,,, ,,,with respect to one of the most famous texts in 20th-century biology, Theodosius Dobzhansky's essay "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (1973). Although its title is widely cited as an aphorism, the text of Dobzhansky's essay is rarely read. It is, in fact, a theological treatise. As Dilley (2013, p. 774) observes: "Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist's arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky's arguments.",, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1089971.html Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of theology? - Dilley S. - 2013 Abstract This essay analyzes Theodosius Dobzhansky's famous article, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," in which he presents some of his best arguments for evolution. I contend that all of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon sectarian claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. Moreover, Dobzhansky's theology manifests several tensions, both in the epistemic justification of his theological claims and in their collective coherence. I note that other prominent biologists--such as Mayr, Dawkins, Eldredge, Ayala, de Beer, Futuyma, and Gould--also use theology-laden arguments. I recommend increased analysis of the justification, complexity, and coherence of this theology. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23890740 "Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint, and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it, the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today." Ruse, M., How evolution became a religion: creationists correct? Darwinians wrongly mix science with morality, politics, National Post, pp. B1, B3, B7 (May 13, 2000)

bornagain77

BA77 #91

As well it can be said, the truth of crystal ball reading is not a mathematical question.

???

I can see why Darwinists would want to put their atheistic theory above mathematical reproach. In so far as math can be applied to Darwinian claims, math consistently shows us that Darwinism is astronomically unlikely:

The mathematical models are devised by people and are not complete or infallible which is why they are being reworked and revised. The applied math comes from the situation not the other way around.

There is something terribly amiss in Darwinland in regards to it not having a rigid mathematical falsification criteria to falsify like other overarching theories of science have! (perhaps the reason a rigid basis cannot be found, despite Chaitin’s valiant search for one, has to do with the fact that math is a ‘non-materialistic’ endeavor of the ‘mind’ in the first place?)

Again the models are designed to match the reality. Because we don't yet fully understand the situation the models will be limited and will not cover all aspects of the situation. In 50 years I would expect the mathematical models to be much, much more comprehensive and complicated. But, let's be honest, modelling sexual selection is going to be extremely difficult. And some things, like genetic drift, are always just going to have to be probabalistic.

And yet you try to defend his blatant dishonesty anyway with not even a single reference/citation on the spontaneous origination of a single molecular machine in the lab! Go figure!

Not my field of expertise I'm afraid so I'll stay out of it.

You sneer that my criticism of Matzke’s integrity (or severe lack thereof) comes from a blog post and the criticism is therefore not worthy to be considered valid (and you dismiss DI out of hand even though you faithfully read it. Color me unimpressed).

I do like to know what people are thinking or being influenced by which is not the same thing as having some real data and rigorous research. Much of the material put out by the Discovery Institute are opinion pieces. Perhaps there is real evidence behind the posts but I find them generally extremely poorly supported. Also, I like to hear the opposing viewpoints and I find them generally much more credible.

Well if you think that Matzke was being forthright in his claim that there are ‘dozens if not hundreds of peer reviewed research studies showing how evolution built a flagellum’, then perhaps you can tell us where all these papers are ?

Not something I know a lot about. But, if he was too far wrong he'd be lambasted in the same way as anyone else who strays too far from known and established results. It's a jungle out there. Those who risk and win get their names on theories. Most though just do their best to inch forward. I'm pretty sure that if you sincerely looked or asked someone else who knows a lot about that field you could get hundreds of references. Just because it's not posted here doesn't mean it's not true!! UD is a very, very, very small backwater in the great river of evolutionary research. Most working biologists have probably never even heard of it.

Perhaps you would like to take Dr. Tour up on a free lunch? Matzke backed out when Dr. Tour requested privacy and Matzke realized that he could not try to pull off one of his propaganda stunts that he is notorious for.

Why would Dr Tour request privacy though? I would think he'd be glad to have his 'achievement' on show? And, if it's not public then it could degenerate into a 'you said' v 'I said' argument. Better to keep this transparent yes? I'm going to agree with Dr Matske on this one: upfront and public is best. Jerad

Jerad you state in regards to neo-Darwinism having no rigid mathematical basis to test against:

While mathematical methods are use to analyse and model aspects of evolutionary theory, the truth of evolutionary theory is not a mathematical question.

As well it can be said, the truth of crystal ball reading is not a mathematical question. I can see why Darwinists would want to put their atheistic theory above mathematical reproach. In so far as math can be applied to Darwinian claims, math consistently shows us that Darwinism is astronomically unlikely:

HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY – WISTAR DESTROYS EVOLUTION Excerpt: A number of mathematicians, familiar with the biological problems, spoke at that 1966 Wistar Institute,, For example, Murray Eden showed that it would be impossible for even a single ordered pair of genes to be produced by DNA mutations in the bacteria, E. coli,—with 5 billion years in which to produce it! His estimate was based on 5 trillion tons of the bacteria covering the planet to a depth of nearly an inch during that 5 billion years. He then explained that,, E. coli contain(s) over a trillion (10^12) bits of data. That is the number 10 followed by 12 zeros. *Eden then showed the mathematical impossibility of protein forming by chance. http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/20hist12.htm

The empirical evidence backs the math up:

Waiting Longer for Two Mutations – Michael J. Behe Excerpt: Citing malaria literature sources (White 2004) I had noted that the de novo appearance of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was an event of probability of 1 in 10^20. I then wrote that ‘for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years’ (1 quadrillion years)(Behe 2007) (because that is the extrapolated time that it would take to produce 10^20 humans). Durrett and Schmidt (2008, p. 1507) retort that my number ‘is 5 million times larger than the calculation we have just given’ using their model (which nonetheless “using their model” gives a prohibitively long waiting time of 216 million years). Their criticism compares apples to oranges. My figure of 10^20 is an empirical statistic from the literature; it is not, as their calculation is, a theoretical estimate from a population genetics model. http://www.discovery.org/a/9461

Of note: although Dr. Behe was vilified by Darwinists for daring to suggest that there could be an ‘Edge’ to evolution, Dr. Behe’s 10^20 number was recently further verified in the lab.

The Vindication of Michael Behe – podcast/video - 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itkxFbyzyro When Theory and Experiment Collide — April 16th, 2011 by Douglas Axe Excerpt: Based on our experimental observations and on calculations we made using a published population model [3], we estimated that Darwin’s mechanism would need a truly staggering amount of time—a trillion trillion years or more—to accomplish the seemingly subtle change in enzyme function that we studied. http://biologicinstitute.org/2011/04/16/when-theory-and-experiment-collide/

If these empirical findings and mathematical analysis do not falsify Darwinism then what possibly can? (see post 71 for empirical falsification of neo-Darwinism from quantum mechanics) There is something terribly amiss in Darwinland in regards to it not having a rigid mathematical falsification criteria to falsify like other overarching theories of science have! (perhaps the reason a rigid basis cannot be found, despite Chaitin's valiant search for one, has to do with the fact that math is a 'non-materialistic' endeavor of the 'mind' in the first place?)

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind's capacity to divine them.,,, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

In regards to neo-Darwinism's failure to be adversely effected by any contrary empirical findings, Dr. Hunter puts the situation like this:

"Being an evolutionist means there is no bad news. If new species appear abruptly in the fossil record, that just means evolution operates in spurts. If species then persist for eons with little modification, that just means evolution takes long breaks. If clever mechanisms are discovered in biology, that just means evolution is smarter than we imagined. If strikingly similar designs are found in distant species, that just means evolution repeats itself. If significant differences are found in allied species, that just means evolution sometimes introduces new designs rapidly. If no likely mechanism can be found for the large-scale change evolution requires, that just means evolution is mysterious. If adaptation responds to environmental signals, that just means evolution has more foresight than was thought. If major predictions of evolution are found to be false, that just means evolution is more complex than we thought." ~ Cornelius Hunter

In regards to a supposed 'scientific' theory not being mathematically/empirically falsifiable, Popper is quite blunt:

"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge

And in that regards, Dr. Behe notes that it is far, far, easier to falsify Intelligent Design than to falsify neo-Darwinism:

It’s Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk

you state:

Dr Matzke does not need nor requests my defence of him academically.

And yet you try to defend his blatant dishonesty anyway with not even a single reference/citation on the spontaneous origination of a single molecular machine in the lab! Go figure! You sneer that my criticism of Matzke's integrity (or severe lack thereof) comes from a blog post and the criticism is therefore not worthy to be considered valid (and you dismiss DI out of hand even though you faithfully read it. Color me unimpressed). Well if you think that Matzke was being forthright in his claim that there are 'dozens if not hundreds of peer reviewed research studies showing how evolution built a flagellum', then perhaps you can tell us where all these papers are ?

"There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation of such a vast subject." James Shapiro, molecular biologist, National Review, Sept. 16, 1996

and note the similarity of Shapiro's quote to a Harold remark in 2001

‘We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity,,, we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.’ Franklin M. Harold,* 2001. The way of the cell: molecules, organisms and the order of life, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 205. *Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, Colorado State University, USA

And yet, despite rejecting Intelligent Design as a ‘matter of principle’, in 2014 Franklin Harold still admited:

“we may still be missing some essential insight" Franklin Harold - 2014 http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2014/12/origin-of-life-research-has-failed-to.html

Moreover, Dr. James Tour, who, in my honest opinion, currently builds the most sophisticated man-made molecular machines in the world, will buy lunch for anyone who can explain to him exactly how Darwinian evolution works:

Top Ten Most Cited Chemist in the World Knows Darwinian Evolution Does Not Work - James Tour, Phd. - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y5-VNg-S0s “I build molecules for a living, I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God." James Tour – one of the leading nano-tech engineers in the world - Strobel, Lee (2000), The Case For Faith, p. 111

Perhaps you would like to take Dr. Tour up on a free lunch? Matzke backed out when Dr. Tour requested privacy and Matzke realized that he could not try to pull off one of his propaganda stunts that he is notorious for. Such as the stunts he orchestrated at the Dover trial. For instance this one:

"A Masterful Feat of Courtroom Deception": Immunologist Donald Ewert on Dover Trial - audio http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-20T15_01_03-08_00

bornagain77

BA77 #87

What is the mathematical demarcation criteria for Darwinism that can be tested against so as to potentially falsify neo-Darwinism, and so as to separate Neo-Darwinism from pseudo-science?

While mathematical methods are use to analyse and model aspects of evolutionary theory, the truth of evolutionary theory is not a mathematical question.

Moreover, my name, picture, and e-mail is, as it has always been, listed at the link to my handle at the bottom of the page.

I was unaware of that as I had not clicked on your alias. My mistake.

Jerad, it’s your call to defend such blatant dishonesty on Nick’s part. I will duly note if you choose to defend his dishonesty and hold it against you if you do.

Dr Matzke does not need nor requests my defence of him academically. And, again, your link points to a non-reviewed blog post where it is impossible to leave comments or corrections. If you want to get in a dialogue regarding Dr Matzke's academic work then you'll have to go somewhere other than the Discovery Institute. And, before you ask or assume, I follow Evolution News and Vies and I listen to the ID: The Future podcast and have for years. Jerad

Thanks ppolish! :) and Merry Christmas: Little Drummer Boy - Pentatonix - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ_MGWio-vc bornagain77

Jerad, you say "most of his (BA77) links are not academic in any sense of the word". I call BS on that. Get serious please. Although I will say it is sometimes hard to keep up with the reading load BA assigns - luckily he does "reruns". BA is appreciated, and he should know that lol, but thank you BA :) ppolish

Jerad since you have a degree in math, then perhaps you can answer the question that Nick refuses to answer. What is the mathematical demarcation criteria for Darwinism that can be tested against so as to potentially falsify neo-Darwinism, and so as to separate Neo-Darwinism from pseudo-science?

“On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” - Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003 Active Information in Metabiology – Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, Robert J. Marks II – 2013 Except page 9: Chaitin states [3], “For many years I have thought that it is a mathematical scandal that we do not have proof that Darwinian evolution works.” In fact, mathematics has consistently demonstrated that undirected Darwinian evolution does not work.,, Consistent with the laws of conservation of information, natural selection can only work using the guidance of active information, which can be provided only by a designer. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.4/BIO-C.2013.4 Chaitin is quoted at 10:00 minute mark of following video in regards to Darwinism lack of a mathematical proof - Dr. Marks also comments on the honesty of Chaitin in personally admitting that his long sought after mathematical proof for Darwinian evolution failed to deliver the goods. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No3LZmPcwyg&feature=player_detailpage#t=600 WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Evolution is True - Roger Highfield - January 2014 Excerpt:,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—'laws'—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology. Little seems to have changed from a decade ago when the late and great John Maynard Smith wrote a chapter on evolutionary game theory for a book on the most powerful equations of science: his contribution did not include a single equation. http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25468

=== Moreover, my name, picture, and e-mail is, as it has always been, listed at the link to my handle at the bottom of the page. for prime example of Nick's lack of integrity:

Calling Nick Matzke's literature bluff on molecular machines - DonaldM UD blogger - April 2013 Excerpt: So now, 10 years later in 2006 Matzke and Pallen come along with this review article. The interesting thing about this article is that, despite all the hand waving claims about all these dozens if not hundreds of peer reviewed research studies showing how evolution built a flagellum, Matzke and Pallen didn’t have a single such reference in their bibliography. Nor did they reference any such study in the article. Rather, the article went into great lengths to explain how a researcher might go about conducting a study to show how evolution could have produced the system. Well, if all those articles and studies were already there, why not just point them all out? In shorty, the entire article was a tacit admission that Behe had been right all along. Fast forward to now and Andre’s question directed to Matzke. We’re now some 17 years after Behe’s book came out where he made that famous claim. And, no surprise, there still is not a single peer reviewed research study that provides the Darwinian explanation for a bacterial flagellum (or any of the other irreducibly complex biological systems Behe mentioned in the book). We’re almost 7 years after the Matzke & Pallen article. So where are all these research studies? There’s been ample time for someone to do something in this regard. Matzke will not answer the question because there is no answer he can give…no peer reviewed research study he can reference, other than the usual literature bluffing he’s done in the past. https://uncommondescent.com/irreducible-complexity/andre-asks-an-excellent-question-regarding-dna-as-a-part-of-an-in-cell-irreducibly-complex-communication-system/#comment-453291

Jerad, it's your call to defend such blatant dishonesty on Nick's part. I will duly note if you choose to defend his dishonesty and hold it against you if you do. bornagain77

Nick #84

I bet even people on your side do this.

I also suspect that most commentators on UD skip over BA77's version of the Gish Gallop. I find that most of his links are not academic in any sense of the word and so can't really be used to support an argument. BA77 #85

Moreover, despite how highly you may think of yourself, I DON’T consider you to be an ‘academic’ in the remotest sense of the word even though you have a PhD in evolutionary biology. I consider you, after I found out about your fraudulent literature bluffs at Dover and subsequently towards Dr. Behe and Dr. Meyer, to be a dishonest charlatan.

I don't doubt that you completely and utterly believe that your points are correct and on topic but you do wander and stray, a lot. In the recent thread about zero being even your first post was a bit . . . meandering. Also, consider this: Dr Matzke is here, participating under his real name. We all know how to find him on the innertubes. We can find out his academic and publication background. We can even find out what he looks like. Now perhaps BA77 you too have a distinguished academic career with a list of publications in peer-reviewed journals. But we cannot know that since you hide behind an alias. Are you so ashamed of your opinion and beliefs that you can't publicly declare them? I am not an academic. I have no publication record. I'm a stay-home dad, living near York, England. I was born in Wisconsin and have an MS in Mathematics from WWU. If that means you will discount my views, that's your call. But most of the participants on UD carefully hide their true lives from us. Barry and Nick are welcome exceptions to the rule and I do wonder why so many of you dwell in the shadows. Jerad

Dr. Matzke, calling me crazy (ad hominem) and calling VERY valid objections to the fact that Neo-Darwinism is not even a confirmable/falsifiable science, including confirmation/falsification on your speculations on junk DNA, 'link spam', and commenting on your druthers for my punctuation, and saying I strayed off topic when I in fact went directly to the primary empirical concern of 'the' topic, and your dislike of my music links, does not, one iota, detract from the fact that you have refused to honestly address the issue. Moreover, despite how highly you may think of yourself, I DON'T consider you to be an 'academic' in the remotest sense of the word even though you have a PhD in evolutionary biology. I consider you, after I found out about your fraudulent literature bluffs at Dover and subsequently towards Dr. Behe and Dr. Meyer, to be a dishonest charlatan. You are a disgrace to modern science! You can hit the scroll down button all you want. For that is really all you can do. The points I raise about your lack of integrity are on record for all to see! bornagain77

ba77, You basically act like a crazy person, which is why I and almost everyone else ignores you. You might have better luck if you: - stopped with the link spam - started using correct punctuation and avoided stuff like ",,," - stayed on topic instead of constantly trying to derail - stopped posting links to music. I mean, who does that in what is supposed to be academic conversation? I mostly just hit scroll-down when I see your posts. I bet even people on your side do this. NickMatzke_UD

Mung, you are confusing genes and genomes, so I'm not sure I can help you. NickMatzke_UD

Nick still has no argument, but somehow I lose. I can afford to lose like that all day. Closely related species have highly similar genomes (except when they don't). These species are closely related. They have highly dissimilar genomes. Therefore, differences must be due to "junk" in the genomes. If closely related species have highly similar genomes (thats how we know they are closely related, after all) And if these species are in fact closely related yet have highly dissimilar genomes Then that is a problem for evolutionary theory, not ID. Do I lose again? Mung

Dr. Matzke, I see that you completely ignored my request in 70:

Dr. Matzke, since you now have a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology, (and since you think neo-Darwinism explains the information content in genomes far better than ID does), perhaps you can now enlighten us as to what the exact falsification criteria for neo-Darwinian evolution is so as to demarcate neo-Darwinism from a pseudo-science? Surely they covered that little fact for you in your classes did they not??? “In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.” Karl Popper – The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge It’s Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk https://uncommondescent.com/genomics/carnivorous-bog-plant-features-smallest-genome-to-date/#comment-537638

Dr. Matzke, without a falsification criteria you simply are not even doing science with your philosophical speculations, (more properly called propaganda), as to why genome sizes of similar looking species have varying genome sizes. In order to be 'scientific' you must show exactly what laboratory experiment would confirm or falsify your belief that most of larger genomes are junk? In that regards, When researchers do try to remove portions of the genome that are supposed to be junk on the Darwinian view of things, they do not find the evidence for massive amounts of 'junk' that you, with no empirical support, insist to be true:

Jonathan Wells on Darwinism, Science, and Junk DNA - November 2011 Excerpt: Mice without “junk” DNA. In 2004, Edward Rubin] and a team of scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California reported that they had engineered mice missing over a million base pairs of non-protein-coding (“junk”) DNA—about 1% of the mouse genome(actually 1mb from a mouse genome is about .03%, not 1%.)—and that they could “see no effect in them.” But molecular biologist Barbara Knowles (who reported the same month that other regions of non-protein-coding mouse DNA were functional) cautioned that the Lawrence Berkeley study didn’t prove that non-protein-coding DNA has no function. “Those mice were alive, that’s what we know about them,” she said. “We don’t know if they have abnormalities that we don’t test for.”And University of California biomolecular engineer David Haussler said that the deleted non-protein-coding DNA could have effects that the study missed. “Survival in the laboratory for a generation or two is not the same as successful competition in the wild for millions of years,” he argued. In 2010, Rubin was part of another team of scientists that engineered mice missing a 58,000-base stretch of so-called “junk” DNA. The team found that the DNA-deficient mice appeared normal until they (along with a control group of normal mice) were fed a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet for 20 weeks. By the end of the study, a substantially higher proportion of the DNA-deficient mice had died from heart disease. Clearly, removing so-called “junk” DNA can have effects that appear only later or under other circumstances. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/jonathan-wells-on-darwinism-science-and-junk-dna/

In fact, there are many more reasons from laboratory work to believe that the genomes are not nearly as 'junky' as Darwinists would prefer to believe. This following lecture highlights many experiments where Darwinists have missed the boat big time with their junk DNA speculations:

Biological Information - Not Junk After All 11-29-2014 by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO-7kVBA_JM In the book "Biological Information: New Perspectives" the chapter entitled "Not Junk After All: Non-Protein-Coding DNA Carries Extensive Biological Information" discusses the various functions of DNA and finds that non-functional DNA is a small minority.

also of interest:

Biological Information – (The Dan Graur incident) Criticizing ENCODE 12-13-2014 by Paul Giem – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhlFJO1WqVk Podcast - Richard Sternberg PhD - On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 2 (Major Differences in higher level chromosome spatial organization) 5:30 minute mark quote: "Basically the dolphin genome is almost wholly identical to the human genome,, yet no one would argue that bottle-nose dolphins are our sister species" http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-2/ Podcast - Richard Sternberg PhD - On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 5 (emphasis on ENCODE and the loss of the term 'gene' as a accurate description in biology and how that loss undermines the modern synthesis of neo-Darwinism) http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-5/

bornagain77

Nick, Suppose we can prove that some organisms have a lot of junk-DNA. Now can we validly extrapolate from this fact that many (or all) organisms have junk-DNA? Suppose that onions have lots of junk-DNA, what does this tell us about the junkiness of e.g. the human genome? Box

77 JoeDecember 20, 2014 at 6:39 pm Obviously Nick Matzke isn’t a design person as there are plenty of intelligent designs that can have things removed and it still functions. However it won’t have any back-up if an issue comes up. It won’t have any expanding capabilities for future needs. And it may not have the resources it needs to deal with a new or trying situation.

This is pretty silly speculation. The small-genomed species has all the genes and all or virtually all of the gene regulation used to built both the small-genomed species and the large-genomed species. These species have more genes than humans do, actually! Why isn't that enough to adapt? We have lots of evidence that genes do useful things for the organism -- they make proteins to deal with nutrients, toxins, energy, reproduction, etc. These are all the typical challenges organisms face.

Except the organism in question isn’t complex, relatively speaking.

Utricularia and Genlisea are flowering plants, and furthermore are carnivorous plants with famously complex traps. They appear to be as complex as any plant. And, of course, both genera have huge variability in genome size, despite all the species looking quite similar except for minor things like flower color, leaf size, etc. Please lay out your definition of complexity, while you're at it. These plants have more genes than the human genome, apparently. If you are trying to say that plants are simple and animals are complicated, please explain why some animals have genomes 1/10 the size of humans (e.g. the fish Fugu), and others have genomes 80 times bigger than humans (e.g., lungfish and many salamanders). NickMatzke_UD

76 ppolishDecember 20, 2014 at 5:09 pm Nick, thanks for linking to those ID writings from 15 – 20 years ago. They have held up pretty good considering how things have advanced in the field,

No they haven't -- they were wrong then, and they are wrong now. Huge genome size variability amongst similar organisms keeping most of the same genes was known then and is known now, and ID advocates ignored it then and ignore it now in their ignorant screeds on the junk DNA topic.

Question – do you think 15 – 20 years from now the term “junk” will still be used?

Yep -- unless the genome size variability data changes, which doesn't seem likely since it is based on direct observations. NickMatzke_UD

Obviously Nick Matzke isn't a design person as there are plenty of intelligent designs that can have things removed and it still functions. However it won't have any back-up if an issue comes up. It won't have any expanding capabilities for future needs. And it may not have the resources it needs to deal with a new or trying situation.

Here we have a complex plant with a lot of genes but very little non-coding DNA, and this calls into question the idea that you need a lot of non-coding DNA to regulate genes in a complex organism.

Except the organism in question isn't complex, relatively speaking. Joe

Nick, thanks for linking to those ID writings from 15 - 20 years ago. They have held up pretty good considering how things have advanced in the field, Question - do you think 15 - 20 years from now the term "junk" will still be used? ppolish

Mung -- T. Ryan Gregory? Really? You should read more of him. E.g. from 2013: http://www.genomicron.evolverzone.com/2013/05/genome-reduction-in-bladderworts-vs-leg-loss-in-snakes/

Genome reduction in bladderworts vs. leg loss in snakes. by T. Ryan Gregory, on May 15th, 2013 In one sense, I am happy that there is enough interest in the concept of “junk DNA” (and by extension, my area of research in genome size evolution) that the subject gets regular media attention. A few months ago, it was all about the ENCODE project and its “finding” of “function” for 80% of the human genome. This week, it’s a story that has the exact opposite message: that large amounts of so-called “junk DNA” can be deleted without apparent consequence. This most recent story was prompted by the publication of the genome sequence of the carnivorous plant known as the floating bladderwort. This plant is of interest because it has a very small genome that is nearly devoid of transposable elements and other non-coding DNA, while also containing more protein-coding genes than the human genome and exhibiting signs of past genome duplication events. We’ve known that the genome was small for several years, but having the genome sequence provides some important insights into what a genome this size contains, and (most interestingly) what it doesn’t. In typical style, Ed Yong has written up a very nice summary of the paper and the potential implications for the junk DNA debate. Following the lead of the original paper and the associated press release, many media reports similarly took the “this plant can get rid of junk DNA, so maybe it isn’t functional after all” line (a few examples: here, here, and here). I was quoted in Ed Yong’s article as follows:

“The study further challenges simplistic accounts of genome biology that assume functions for most or all DNA sequences, without addressing the enormous variability in genome size among plants and animals,” says T. Ryan Gregory, who studies the evolution of genome sizes at the University of Guelph. In 2007, Gregory coined the “Onion Test” to challenge anyone who thinks that non-coding DNA isn’t junk. If that DNA is important, why is it that the onion needs so much more of it than a human, or even other closely related plants? “The Onion Test could just as easily have been called the Bladderwort Test,” he says. “If non-coding DNA is vital for gene regulation or some similar function, then how can a plant such as the bladderwort get by with so little of it?”

For me, the logic of the authors of the paper is straightforward. Here we have a complex plant with a lot of genes but very little non-coding DNA, and this calls into question the idea that you need a lot of non-coding DNA to regulate genes in a complex organism.

You lose. Again. NickMatzke_UD

...although this [total genome size] was remarkably constant within individual organisms and species, it varied extensively among different species, often in puzzling ways that were quite independent of an organism's complexity. - The Evolution of the Genome, p. 92

Of course, evolutionary theory requires that closely related organisms have similar genomes. Unless they don't. Mung

From the OP:

Moreover, genome sizes vary widely between different Genlisea species, spanning the range from ~60 to 1700 Mbp.

It follows that there must be a lot of junk DNA in this one genus. Mung

...there are both deep parallels and major divergences between plants and animals in terms of genome size evolution. However, on one point the two kingdoms clearly project the same message: that genomes size is a highly relevant biological characteristic whose evolution continues to represent a key puzzle in genomics and evolutionary biology. The Evolution of The Genome Edited by T. Ryan Gregory Chapter 2: Genome Size Evolution in Plants p. 89

IOW, take anything Nick Matzke says about genome size with a grain of salt. Mung

Of supplemental note to post 70, In actuality neo-Darwinian evolution has already been empirically falsified with the finding of non-local, beyond space and time, quantum entanglement in DNA:

Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA - short video https://vimeo.com/92405752 Quantum entanglement holds together life’s blueprint – 2010 Excerpt: When the researchers analysed the DNA without its helical structure, they found that the electron clouds were not entangled. But when they incorporated DNA’s helical structure into the model, they saw that the electron clouds of each base pair became entangled with those of its neighbours. “If you didn’t have entanglement, then DNA would have a simple flat structure, and you would never get the twist that seems to be important to the functioning of DNA,” says team member Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford. http://neshealthblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/quantum-entanglement-holds-together-lifes-blueprint/ DNA Can Discern Between Two Quantum States, Research Shows – June 2011 Excerpt: — DNA — can discern between quantum states known as spin. – The researchers fabricated self-assembling, single layers of DNA attached to a gold substrate. They then exposed the DNA to mixed groups of electrons with both directions of spin. Indeed, the team’s results surpassed expectations: The biological molecules reacted strongly with the electrons carrying one of those spins, and hardly at all with the others. The longer the molecule, the more efficient it was at choosing electrons with the desired spin, while single strands and damaged bits of DNA did not exhibit this property. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110331104014.htm Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php Closing the last Bell-test loophole for photons - Jun 11, 2013 Excerpt:– requiring no assumptions or correction of count rates – that confirmed quantum entanglement to nearly 70 standard deviations.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-06-bell-test-loophole-photons.html etc.. etc..

In other words, to give a coherent explanation for an effect that is shown to be completely independent of any time and space constraints one is forced to appeal to a cause that is itself not limited to time and space! i.e. Put more simply, you cannot explain a effect by a cause that has been falsified by the very same effect you are seeking to explain! Improbability arguments of various ‘special’ configurations of material particles, which have been a staple of the arguments against neo-Darwinism, simply do not apply since the cause is not within the material particles in the first place! And although Naturalists have proposed various, far fetched, naturalistic/materialistic scenarios to try to get around the Theistic implications of quantum non-locality, none of the ‘far fetched’ naturalistic solutions, in themselves, are compatible with the reductive materialism that undergirds neo-Darwinian thought.

"[while a number of philosophical ideas] may be logically consistent with present quantum mechanics, ...materialism is not." Eugene Wigner Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism - video playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TViAqtowpvZy5PZpn-MoSK_&v=4C5pq7W5yRM Why Quantum Theory Does Not Support Materialism By Bruce L Gordon, Ph.D Excerpt: The underlying problem is this: there are correlations in nature that require a causal explanation but for which no physical explanation is in principle possible. Furthermore, the nonlocalizability of field quanta entails that these entities, whatever they are, fail the criterion of material individuality. So, paradoxically and ironically, the most fundamental constituents and relations of the material world cannot, in principle, be understood in terms of material substances. Since there must be some explanation for these things, the correct explanation will have to be one which is non-physical – and this is plainly incompatible with any and all varieties of materialism. http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952939

Thus, as far as empirical science itself is concerned, Neo-Darwinism is falsified in its claim that information in the cell is ‘emergent’ from a reductive materialistic basis. of note:

Quantum Entanglement and Information Quantum entanglement is a physical resource, like energy, associated with the peculiar nonclassical correlations that are possible between separated quantum systems. Entanglement can be measured, transformed, and purified. A pair of quantum systems in an entangled state can be used as a quantum information channel to perform computational and cryptographic tasks that are impossible for classical systems. The general study of the information-processing capabilities of quantum systems is the subject of quantum information theory. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/

Verse and Music:

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Sidewalk Prophets-Because It's Christmas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-3Tk8ofIFY

bornagain77

Dr. Matzke, since you now have a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology, (and since you think neo-Darwinism explains the information content in genomes far better than ID does), perhaps you can now enlighten us as to what the exact falsification criteria for neo-Darwinian evolution is so as to demarcate neo-Darwinism from a pseudo-science? Surely they covered that little fact for you in your classes did they not???

"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge It's Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution - Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk

As far as I can tell, neo-Darwinian evolution is impossible to falsify both empirically and mathematically,,,

"Being an evolutionist means there is no bad news. If new species appear abruptly in the fossil record, that just means evolution operates in spurts. If species then persist for eons with little modification, that just means evolution takes long breaks. If clever mechanisms are discovered in biology, that just means evolution is smarter than we imagined. If strikingly similar designs are found in distant species, that just means evolution repeats itself. If significant differences are found in allied species, that just means evolution sometimes introduces new designs rapidly. If no likely mechanism can be found for the large-scale change evolution requires, that just means evolution is mysterious. If adaptation responds to environmental signals, that just means evolution has more foresight than was thought. If major predictions of evolution are found to be false, that just means evolution is more complex than we thought." ~ Cornelius Hunter Darwinians Try to Usurp Biomimetics Popularity - October 9, 2014 Excerpt: "it is remarkable, therefore, that formal mathematical, rather than verbal, proof of the fact that natural selection has an optimizing tendency was still lacking after a century and a half later.",,, More importantly, its proponents are still struggling, a century and a half after Darwin, to provide evidence and the mathematical formalism to demonstrate that random natural processes have the creative power that Darwin, Dawkins, and others claim it has. Everyone already knows that intelligent causes have such creative power. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/darwinians_try090231.html

Thus Dr. Matzke, perhaps with your expertise, you can now tell us exactly what the empirical/mathematical falsification criteria of neo-Darwinism is so as delieniate it from pseudo-science?

‘Before you can ask ‘Is Darwinian theory correct or not?’, You have to ask the preliminary question ‘Is it clear enough so that it could be correct?’. That’s a very different question. One of my prevailing doctrines about Darwinian theory is ‘Man, that thing is just a mess. It’s like looking into a room full of smoke.’ Nothing in the theory is precisely, clearly, carefully defined or delineated. It lacks all of the rigor one expects from mathematical physics, and mathematical physics lacks all the rigor one expects from mathematics. So we’re talking about a gradual descent down the level of intelligibility until we reach evolutionary biology.’ David Berlinski "I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has." - Malcolm Muggeridge

bornagain77

NickMatzke_UD: What are the implications if species 1 has a genome of 60 Mbp and species 2 has a genome of 1700 Mbp (…)

Suppose that the genome of species 2 is indeed 96% junk. This raises the question why doesn't this large piece of junk entail an enormous disadvantage?. Surely it comes with a cost for the organism - if only to keep the DNA from getting an entangled mess; see post #28. Why does natural selection keep some genomes functional/small and why does it allow other genomes to become large and mostly disfunctional? Box

rhampton7:

Your explanation, like Nick’s, doesn’t have the experimental data to resolve this particular case of a seemingly unnecessarily massive genome. No one knows what the extra information does. It’s possible that the extra information only “activates” under unusual and or extreme conditions, it’s also possible that it is junk. Until someone starts growing variants with clipped genomes under a host of conditions, all we’ll have are guesses and “just-so” stories.

This is incorrect. If Nick's Darwinist junk-DNA hypothesis were valid, the extra sequences would not be conserved over millions of years across all individuals within the species under consideration. Random mutations would have created a huge number of disparate sequences. This is not observed. Mapou

Nick Matzke:

5. Therefore, most of the non-genic DNA is doing: not much. In other words, it’s junk.

How much of the genome of Genlisea tuberosa is junk? For all you know 99% of the genome of Genlisea tuberosa could be junk DNA. And that's just one example. Are you saying that there is a known correlation between genome size and the amount of junk in the genome? If not, you just don't have an argument. Mung

Nice of Nick to actually quote some ID people. Unfortunately none of them make the argument he attributes to ID'ers. Nick says his argument is a simple one, and I agree. Too simple. Did he answer any of the charges leveled against it? 1. Cherry picking 2. Straw man (see the opening paragraph of this post) 3. non sequitur 4. making unwarranted assumptions/begging the question 5. it's actually a problem for evolutionary theory, not ID That's a lot for such a simple argument, but Nick manages to pull it off somehow. Let's talk about cherry picking. If an ID'er picked out an organism with a very simple genome and it turned out that the genome is mostly or all functional and then used that to argue that junk DNA is a "myth" Nick would no doubt be quick to charge them with cherry picking the data. And rightly so. But that's what Nick has done, but in reverse. But what's worse is his argument seems incoherent at the start. Are we to assume that the species with the smaller genome has a smaller genome because it is mostly not junk or has no junk? Nick can't say. But his argument depends on it. Nick could argue that he is only arguing for a large amount of junk dna in this specific instance based upon the difference in genome size. But then his argument isn't generalizable and it doesn't demonstrate anything. Mung

Hi Nick, Your right, the use of buying and selling is a poor metaphor. What I meant by spending, is that DNA is disposed of (exported) and DNA is acquired (imported), often times for some benefit, or need. Males (including flowering plants) certainly donate (or spend) their DNA when they mate, LOL. So obviously they are investing in offspring. Microbes import DNA from other microbes or their environment for one reason or another. More commerce? Anyhow, there is certainly an economy in nature, especially in living systems, and DNA appears to be a valuable resource. I think you make my point about our total knowledge- we just don't know as much as we may think? littlejohn

63 littlejohnDecember 19, 2014 at 4:52 pm Nick, Could it be possible that “Junk” DNA is a valuable resource? After all, it appears to be a commodity among many microbes, is it not? Maybe that’s why certain species retain more (savers), while others streamline (spenders)? At least it does not appear to be a problem for those organisms that have apparently exceeding large DNA savings accounts? Anyhow, how much do we really know about what DNA is doing, and what populations are doing with it? Would you say our total knowledge is 1% complete?, 10%?, ___%? Appreciate your time!

Hi -- I'm not sure to do with questions like these. Is there a nice way to say that they indicate an almost complete unfamiliarity with basic biology? :-) How could an organism "spend" DNA? What would they be "buying"? Usually in these discussions someone raises the idea that maybe junk DNA is kept around because it will be useful in the future -- but this would be an argument for keeping the DNA, not "spending" it and thereby getting rid of it. (The "saved for future use" idea is hopelessly flawed itself, but that's another topic -- at least it is a parse-able idea.) The question also seems not to realize that there is DNA in (almost) every cell of every individual organism, and there may be thousands or billions of individual organisms in a species, living and breeding and dying each generation. What would it even mean for a big collection of animals or plants to "spend" its DNA? As for assigning a percentage to our total knowledge of DNA -- what does that even mean? What's our percentage knowledge of Mars? Of Shakespeare? I think we pretty much know that genes are where most of the action is in terms of building organisms, that and regulation of the genes, and we pretty much know that the amount of non-genic DNA that serves important regulation purposes is not dramatically larger than the amount of genic DNA. It's the latter bit that many people (IDists, and some poorly educated biologists) dispute when they claim that most junk DNA is functional. Their idea is based mostly on naive intuition/"common sense" ("if it's there it must be doing something") and failure to educate themselves about the relevant data which has shown that common sense is unreliable here: basically: (1) diversity of genome sizes, (2) simple genetic load arguments, (3) the composition of junk DNA looks mostly like the product of genomic parasites (viruses, transposons, etc.). We could add (4) conservation arguments but that's a more recent development. NickMatzke_UD

Nick, Could it be possible that "Junk" DNA is a valuable resource? After all, it appears to be a commodity among many microbes, is it not? Maybe that's why certain species retain more (savers), while others streamline (spenders)? At least it does not appear to be a problem for those organisms that have apparently exceeding large DNA savings accounts? Anyhow, how much do we really know about what DNA is doing, and what populations are doing with it? Would you say our total knowledge is 1% complete?, 10%?, ___%? Appreciate your time! littlejohn

We have explained it. You’re just being your typical Darwinist, a weaver of lies and deception. Nothing to see here, people. It’s the same old crap. Moving right along.

Your explanation, like Nick's, doesn't have the experimental data to resolve this particular case of a seemingly unnecessarily massive genome. No one knows what the extra information does. It's possible that the extra information only "activates" under unusual and or extreme conditions, it's also possible that it is junk. Until someone starts growing variants with clipped genomes under a host of conditions, all we'll have are guesses and "just-so" stories. rhampton7

The above review was from 2014. Here's another, Casey Luskin from 2007: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/06/wired_magazine_unashamedly_mix003762.html

Intelligent Design has Long Predicted This Day Proponents of intelligent design have long maintained that Neo-Darwinism's widely held assumption that our cells contain much genetic "junk" is both dangerous to the progress of science and wrong. As I explain here, design theorists recognize that "Intelligent agents typically create functional things," and thus Jonathan Wells has suggested, "From an ID perspective, however, it is extremely unlikely that an organism would expend its resources on preserving and transmitting so much 'junk'." [4] Design theorists have thus been predicting the death of the junk-DNA paradigm for many years: [...Luskin goes on to quote Mims 1994, Dembski 1998, Wells, etc.]

NickMatzke_UD

59 ppolishDecember 19, 2014 at 12:24 pm “big, slow, sluggish, low effective population size = big genome, lots of junk small, fast, active, high effective population size = small genome, less junk” Thank you Nick for that general rule, it makes sense. I don’t understand most of the fuss, and I sure don’t see any incompatibility to ID either. So thanks again. And btw, you’re a dick. Sorry, just kidding:) but had to throw that in. Had to.

Heh, funny :-) But, regarding: "I don’t understand most of the fuss, and I sure don’t see any incompatibility to ID either." Really?!? Is this a joke too? http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/07/stephen_meyers_4087941.html E.g.:

ID researcher William Dembski in 1998: "On an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function." Meyer affirms that "the discovery in recent years that nonprotein-coding DNA performs a diversity of important biological functions has confirmed this prediction." He goes on to present a list of ten important functions of nonprotein-coding regions of the genome, including regulating DNA replication, regulating transcription, influencing the proper folding and maintenance of chromosomes, controlling RNA processing, editing, and splicing, and others, noting that in some cases, "junk" DNA has even been found to code functional genes. Meyer sums up his argument this way (p. 407):

Indeed, far from being "junk," as materialistic theories of evolution assumed, the nonprotein-coding DNA directs the use of other information in the genome, just as an operating system directs the use of the information contained in various application programs stored in a computer. In any case, contrary to the often heard criticism that the theory makes no predictions, intelligent design not only makes a discriminating prediction about the nature of "junk DNA"; recent discoveries about nonprotein-coding DNA confirm the prediction it makes.

In a footnote on the same page, Meyer references a letter submitted to the journal Science in 1994 by pro-ID scientist Forrest M. Mims III. The letter, which was rejected by the publication, suggests that looks can be deceiving when it comes to nonprotein-coding DNA:

They have always reminded me of strings of NOP (No OPeration) instructions. A do-nothing string of NOPs might appear as "junk code" to the uninitiated, but, when inserted in a program loop, a string of NOPs can be used to achieve a precise time delay. Perhaps the "junk DNA" puzzle would be solved more rapidly if a few more computer scientists would make the switch to molecular biology.

Meyer also reviews the functions of nonprotein-coding regions of the genome in the Epilogue to Signature in the Cell. On page 464, he notes that

the design logic of an information-processing system precludes carrying a preponderance of useless code, especially in biological settings where such excess would impose a burdensome energy cost on the cell."

Rather, Meyer argues, nonprotein-coding DNA "provides services and needed functions to the protein-coding DNA during gene expression. The prediction that "junk" DNA is actually functional is just one expectation of intelligent design. Meyer details a dozen other ID-inspired predictions in Appendix A at the end of the book.

NickMatzke_UD

"big, slow, sluggish, low effective population size = big genome, lots of junk small, fast, active, high effective population size = small genome, less junk" Thank you Nick for that general rule, it makes sense. I don't understand most of the fuss, and I sure don't see any incompatibility to ID either. So thanks again. And btw, you're a dick. Sorry, just kidding:) but had to throw that in. Had to. ppolish

Nick Matzke:

Well, this is a hilarious thread. The ID movement has been going on for years about the functionality of junk DNA and the foolishness of the idea that a lot of the DNA in large genomes is junk, yet no one can explain how that position can remain legitimate when one species has 3.5% of the genome of a very similar species.

We have explained it. You're just being your typical Darwinist, a weaver of lies and deception. Nothing to see here, people. It's the same old crap. Moving right along. Mapou

56 MungDecember 19, 2014 at 11:52 am Nick Matzke: Well, this is a hilarious thread. The ID movement has been going on for years about the functionality of junk DNA and the foolishness of the idea that a lot of the DNA in large genomes is junk, yet no one can explain how that position can remain legitimate when one species has 3.5% of the genome of a very similar species. First, you’re cherry-picking. Second, you’ve created a straw-man. When did the argument from junk DNA become dependent on the size of the genome? And let’s lay out your logic: Species x has a genome consisting of n base pairs. Species y is closely related to species x but has a genome consisting of only m base pairs, a small fraction of teh size of the genome of species x. Therefore most of the genome of species x is junk. a.) that’s a non-sequitur. b.) you’re assuming that species x and species y are closely related. c.) closely related species should have closely related genomes but these don’t, which is actually a problem for evolutionary theory, not for ID.

Mung, It's not a complex argument. 1. The species are very similar. 2. The genes are very similar (which is why we think they are closely related, in addition to the morphological similarity; heck, even the YECs typically admit that the special creation of each individual species is incorrect, and that species within genera share common ancestry). 3. We have lots and lots of evidence that genes are very important for building organisms. The debate (amongst the clueless) is over whether most of that non-genic DNA is also very important. 4. Nature has done the experiment showing what happens to the organism if you keep the genes, but delete most of the non-genic DNA. The answer is: not much. Everything needed for building the organism is in the 3.5% that was kept (which has a lot of genes, and undoubtedly also some non-genic DNA used for regulating the genes). 5. Therefore, most of the non-genic DNA is doing: not much. In other words, it's junk. We've known about this kind of thing for decades (the Genlisea and Utricularia examples are just particularly spectacular examples), but the ID movement systematically ignores it. On the rare occasions that it has come up (e.g. Jonathan Wells's book), they do nothing but flail helplessly. NickMatzke_UD

Nick Matzke:

Well, this is a hilarious thread. The ID movement has been going on for years about the functionality of junk DNA and the foolishness of the idea that a lot of the DNA in large genomes is junk, yet no one can explain how that position can remain legitimate when one species has 3.5% of the genome of a very similar species.

First, you're cherry-picking. Second, you've created a straw-man. When did the argument from junk DNA become dependent on the size of the genome? And let's lay out your logic: Species x has a genome consisting of n base pairs. Species y is closely related to species x but has a genome consisting of only m base pairs, a small fraction of teh size of the genome of species x. Therefore most of the genome of species x is junk. a.) that's a non-sequitur. b.) you're assuming that species x and species y are closely related. c.) closely related species should have closely related genomes but these don't, which is actually a problem for evolutionary theory, not for ID. Mung

wd400:

I can explain it. Most of the genome in the species with larger genomes will be junk DNA.

Surely you realize that you have not offered an explanation. Also, here's what you are claiming: The smaller the size of a genome, the more likely it is that the genome is fully functional. There's no reason for that to be the case, not without begging the question. At least none that I can see. Mung

I don’t think the founders of modern synthesis had anything to say about the evolution of genome size, since genomes were not exactly a focus in those days. But, as I have mentioned several times, much of genome size evolution can be explained by evolutionary genetics: absent a strong fitness costs repeats will copy them selves, so genomes will drift towards larger size, selection is stronger is larger populations so you’d expect creatures with smaller population sizes to be less able to stop the spread of repeats and so have larger genomes (check) and the correlation of genome size to cell size means genome-size will in turn correlate with the energetic needs of the genome’s host — salamanders have huge repeat-riddled genome, hummingbirds little clean ones.

It's never clear what IDists mean by "modern synthesis" -- usually it just means whatever they are opposing at the moment. But, as wd400 is alluding, modern neutral theory (e.g. Michael Lynch) is pretty effective here. The explanation of junk DNA mostly comes down to effective population size and cell size. Effective population size determines the efficiency of selection. For small populations, traits that are mildly deleterious (e.g. the tiny cost of replicating extra DNA) are effectively neutral, and can accumulate without being selected against. Any mutational bias, e.g. transposons self-replicating in the genome, can inflate genome size rapidly. This is slightly more controversial, but there appears to be a physical relationship between genome size and cell size -- the amount of DNA physically determines the size of the nucleus, and cells typically maintain a typical cell volume:nucleus volume relationship. In some cases, smaller cells might be selected for: rapid growth, high metabolism (smaller cells=more surface area), and/or more complexity in morphology (smaller cells can build more complex structures). These factors often correlate, so teasing them apart is not always easy, but it looks like: big, slow, sluggish, low effective population size = big genome, lots of junk small, fast, active, high effective population size = small genome, less junk Carnivorous plants often have high metabolism (for plants) and complex micro-structures, so the selection pressure for deletions of junk may be there, in cases where the population size is big enough. They also have the peculiar situation of usually being in low-nutrient environments, and especially if phosphate is the limiting nutrient in some carnivorous environments, they may have extra selection pressure against junk DNA. NickMatzke_UD

So an ancient snail should be junky and a roadrunner clean? Interesting. ppolish

Well, this is a hilarious thread. The ID movement has been going on for years about the functionality of junk DNA and the foolishness of the idea that a lot of the DNA in large genomes is junk, yet no one can explain how that position can remain legitimate when one species has 3.5% of the genome of a very similar species.

ppolishDecember 18, 2014 at 5:39 pm Nick, is the percentage of junk similar between the 60 Mbp and 1700 Mbp?

No. The small-genome species has basically all of the same genes as the large-genome species. Its genome is smaller because it has lost most of the transposons, fossil viruses, internal duplications of noncoding DNA, long introns, etc. and other detritus that accumulate in the genomes of large-genomed species.

37 MungDecember 18, 2014 at 8:34 pm The designers are not opposed to differing sizes of data storage media.

Oh, so you know the designers? Can you give us their contact information, I imagine a lot of people have questions for them. Also, please tell the ID leadership that they were wrong to say that ID theory doesn't include hypotheses about the IDers in ID explanations. NickMatzke_UD

For closely related species like these, and ignoring the effect of polyploidisation which doesn't appear to be a factor here, that would a pretty good approximation. It wouldn't work as well for species seperated by more evoluionary time. I don't think the founders of modern synthesis had anything to say about the evolution of genome size, since genomes were not exactly a focus in those days. But, as I have mentioned several times, much of genome size evolution can be explained by evolutionary genetics: absent a strong fitness costs repeats will copy them selves, so genomes will drift towards larger size. Some of that drift depend on the particular repeats found in a given clade (as I set earlier, most mammals repeats are dead). Selection is stronger is larger populations so you'd expect creatures with smaller population sizes to be less able to stop the spread of repeats and so have larger genomes (check) and the correlation of genome size to cell size means genome-size will in turn correlate with the energetic needs of the genome's host -- salamanders have huge repeat-riddled genome, hummingbirds little clean ones. wd400

WD, ranking organisms by size of genome would therefore also give one a junk ranking. That was easy. Are the results predicted by modern synthesis? Explainable? ppolish

I can explain it. Most of the genome in the species with larger genomes will be junk DNA. wd400

Can you answer Nicks’ question? How can you maintain that most DNA is functional while these very similar plants have such radically difference genome sizes?

You're asking a non-biologist to explain something that neither of you guys can explain? Again, that says a lot. But you give ID quite a lot of credit every time you do that. "Sure, evolution has a lot of lame arguments, but what does ID have?" You can go on giving ID that kind of credibility and equivalency all day long. If I merely say that your explanation is weak and that we don't know the function (we don't even know how or if any size genome fully causes function) then that makes my "ignorant" post quite worthwhile. I'm not claiming to be a scientist, but the little I know was enough to expose how weak the evolutionary response really is. And this is important - every day on this blog I can benefit from the arguments of evolutionary biologists like yourself. So, if you had knock-down arguments, I would have heard them by now. Instead, I think you can see what I learned in this case. It's a lot of smoke-and-mirrors and very minor claims. Silver Asiatic

The Junk DNA paradigm is just one of those problems and some are backing away from that terminology, at least.

Maybe this was not the paper to start in on the Junk DNA topic? Can you answer Nicks' question? How can you maintain that most DNA is functional while these very similar plants have such radically difference genome sizes? As to the rest, you have backed a long way for your orginal "grandiose" post, so I guess that's something. Of course each little sub-field within evolutionary biology and aligned subjects doesn't provide a knock-down argument for the fact life evolved. All I wanted to point out here is that, contra your ignorant rant at the top, evolutionary biology is a profitable framework in which to do science (something that can't be said for ID) and one of the things it can help us explain is the variation in genome size you were going on about. wd400

butifnot @35

From the ID view we are observing FANTASTICALLY engineered systems, of which we are just beginning to scratch the surface of understanding. Evolutionists seem to have the child-like and ignorant position that having recently stumbled into DNA they almost have it wrapped up.

That's it. When we step back and look at what evolutionists are really claiming - as having The Answer for the entire panoply of life on earth. Then we look at the abundance of those fantastically engineered systems - the same evolutionists cannot even explain how those systems work today. Supposedly they can claim knowing their origin? It's laughable. It's an incredibly ignorant position and lacks an obvious appreciation for what is observed. To follow that up and claim that some statistical alignments between the genome size and morphology (let's say nothing about the actual functions of the organism), for example, are evidence supporting the grand claim is, truly, child-like. Silver Asiatic

And evolutionary biology gives us the framework to explain test and even predict (did you read the pterosaur paper..) those correlations for genome size.

With evolution, it's the quality and relevance of the predictions when compared to the grandiose claims that are offered. I can predict lots of things about the next new species of insect that will be discovered. I think the evolutionary framework also leads to dead-ends, as many scientists are discovering. The Junk DNA paradigm is just one of those problems and some are backing away from that terminology, at least. From a design perspective, there may be something else going on to explain the variation in size and the non-correlation to complexity of function. Yes, I did read the paper. Statistical analysis alone does not offer convincing explanations. The paper revealed quite a lot of territory that remains 'enigmatic' (my word for it). Why a negative correlation in those species and not others? There are lots of reasons one could speculate. Selective pressures are called in as explanations, but that's not much different than saying "the designer wanted it that way". BA77 mentioned just-so-stories, I'd at least call the interpretations of the data to be evolutionary-storytelling at this point.

What does ID have?

From my perspective, ID has a lot going for it because it's true. So it is the correct framework for analysis (as many scientists have affirmed). It can drive us to search beyond what is claimed for mutation, selection and drift. Designed systems may be built with self-organizing principles, or they may use non-physical connections (language) to communicate function. ID opens up a lot of ideas for science. Just the effort to describe complexity, information, design, function, etc. is very worthwhile. When Michael Behe sought to find the Edge of Evolution, he was criticized as being wrong. But did his critics show what 'the real' Edge is? They were content to leave that ambiguous. If evolution, at least, made more modest claims for itself it would be less ridiculous, in my view. If someone wants to go around making statistical analysis of genome size and body size, I can't imagine why anyone would care. But to claim some correlations, with all the variation and margin of error that entails, are the evidence of the evolution of all of the functional DNA in the earth's biosphere is absurd, as I see it. That only shows how weak the evidence really is. The fact that those understandings are controversial, even among evolutionists only makes it worse. Silver Asiatic

REC:

From you reply, I think it follows, that in other organisms, if experiments were conducted where DNA was deleted to no ill effect, would you admit there is “junk” DNA in that genome.

That doesn't follow and demonstrates ignorance of intelligent designs. Redundant features can be deleted with no ill effects . Future needs can be deleted with no ill effects too. Joe

There have been no experiments to determine what the “extra” 1600Mbps is or does, so you can’t truthfully say that it is redundant features or anomalies.

Then you don't have any clue and shouldn't say anything. BTW the "anomaly" I was referring to is genome duplications that were kept. Joe

rhamton @36 From you reply, I think it follows, that in other organisms, if experiments were conducted where DNA was deleted to no ill effect, would you admit there is "junk" DNA in that genome. REC

"This is a perfectly sensible outcome within ID theory" As the near-hysterical responses to Nick's very reasonable query demonstrate, all things are sensible within "ID "theory"" ....double square quotes intended. Every base is precious. Every base is precious in some (undetermined) circumstance. Every base is precious because the designer loves artisic flourishes. Both parsimonious and massively expanded genomes are evidence of precise and fantastic design. REC

If you want to reduce the size of your junk, eat bugs. That is the takeaway from this study I think. Hmm, maybe I can sell a junk reducing concoction on the internet? "Tired of being compared to a Marbled Lungfish? Reduce the size of your junk with ppolish's scientifically proven bug juice" ppolish

IMO, the "extra" or seemingly unused sequences in a genome are probably not expressed for various environmental reasons. It's possible that transplanting the organism to a different environment (e.g., colder, warmer, wetter or drier climates; or different soil compositions) may suddenly reveal new traits. This is a perfectly sensible outcome within ID theory, IMO. Mapou

Obviously, with such a small genome, this was the earliest plant. I think this is a remarkable discovery. Mung

The designers are not opposed to differing sizes of data storage media. When someone buys a computer they often get to choose how much hard disk space they want. Different people can even buy the same brand of computer which might have different storage capacities even though the same brand and model. Can't you just imagine what anti-ID theory would make of computer hard drive sizes? Therefore computers aren't designed. right. Mung

That is incorrect. ID is OK with redundant features and ID is also OK with anomalies.

There have been no experiments to determine what the "extra" 1600Mbps is or does, so you can't truthfully say that it is redundant features or anomalies. It could be anything, even "junk". rhampton7

What are the implications if species 1 has a genome of 60 Mbp and species 2 has a genome of 1700 Mbp, and the species are virtually identical — they are in the same genus, they both have similar flowers, similar traps, similar leaves, they are both photosynthetic, etc.

Here's one - There is far, far, far more going on than DNA. If your side had predicted massive disparity in genome size of 'virtually identical' species, .00001% of your snarky cockiness could be justified. From the ID view we are observing FANTASTICALLY engineered systems, of which we are just beginning to scratch the surface of understanding. Evolutionists seem to have the child-like and ignorant position that having recently stumbled into DNA they almost have it wrapped up. butifnot

ID is not reliant on all the information necessary for an organism being stored in DNA alone, as the modern synthesis of Neo-Darwinism is, and therefore flexibility of genome size is allowed within ID theory if various design constraints are imposed by the organism, (such as smaller genomes for bats and birds as wd400 pointed out). In fact, as pointed out before, the fact that body plan information is now found to not be stored in DNA alone is a major blow to the foundational precepts of neo-Darwinian theory, whereas ID is quite comfortable with that 'top down' finding: a few notes along that line: Body Plans Are Not Mapped-Out by the DNA – Jonathan Wells – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meR8Hk5q_EM In Embryo Development, Non-DNA Information Is at Least as Important as DNA - Jonathan Wells - May 2012 Excerpt: Evidence shows that non-DNA developmental information can be inherited in several ways. For example, it can be inherited through chromatin modifications, which affect gene expression without altering underlying DNA sequences. Another example is cytoplasmic inheritance, which involves cytoskeletal patterns and localization of intracellular molecules. Still another example is cortical inheritance, which involves membrane patterns. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/05/in_embryo_devel060031.html podcast - Jonathan Wells: Is There Biological Information Outside of the DNA?, pt. 3 - Bioelectric code http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2014-06-11T16_35_52-07_00 Timelapse Video Reveals Electric Face in Embryonic Tadpole - July 2011 Excerpt: "When a frog embryo is just developing, before it gets a face, a pattern for that face lights up on the surface of the embryo. We believe this is the first time such patterning has been reported for an entire structure, not just for a single organ. I would never have predicted anything like it. It's a jaw dropper." http://www.sciencespacerobots.com/timelapse-video-reveals-electric-face-in-embryonic-tadpole-718111 Not in the Genes: Embryonic Electric Fields - Jonathan Wells - December 2011 Excerpt: although the molecular components of individual sodium-potassium channels may be encoded in DNA sequences, the three-dimensional arrangement of those channels -- which determines the form of the endogenous electric field -- constitutes an independent source of information in the developing embryo. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/not_in_the_gene054071.html Stephen Meyer - Functional Proteins and Information for Body Plans - video https://vimeo.com/91322260 Dr. Stephen Meyer comments at the end of the preceding video,,, ‘Now one more problem as far as the generation of information. It turns out that you don’t only need information to build genes and proteins, it turns out to build Body-Plans you need higher levels of information; Higher order assembly instructions. DNA codes for the building of proteins, but proteins must be arranged into distinctive circuitry to form distinctive cell types. Cell types have to be arranged into tissues. Tissues have to be arranged into organs. Organs and tissues must be specifically arranged to generate whole new Body-Plans, distinctive arrangements of those body parts. We now know that DNA alone is not responsible for those higher orders of organization. DNA codes for proteins, but by itself it does not insure that proteins, cell types, tissues, organs, will all be arranged in the body. And what that means is that the Body-Plan morphogenesis, as it is called, depends upon information that is not encoded on DNA. Which means you can mutate DNA indefinitely. 80 million years, 100 million years, til the cows come home. It doesn’t matter, because in the best case you are just going to find a new protein some place out there in that vast combinatorial sequence space. You are not, by mutating DNA alone, going to generate higher order structures that are necessary to building a body plan. So what we can conclude from that is that the neo-Darwinian mechanism is grossly inadequate to explain the origin of information necessary to build new genes and proteins, and it is also grossly inadequate to explain the origination of novel biological form.’ Stephen Meyer - (excerpt taken from Meyer/Sternberg vs. Shermer/Prothero debate - 2009) "These different sources of epigenetic information in embryonic cells pose an enormous challenge to the sufficiency of the neo-Darwinian mechanism. According to neo-Darwinism, new information, form, and structure arise from natural selection acting on random mutations arising at a very low level within the biological hierarchy—within the genetic text. Yet both body-plan formation during embryological development and major morphological innovation during the history of life depend upon a specificity of arrangement at a much higher level of the organizational hierarchy, a level that DNA alone does not determine. If DNA isn’t wholly responsible for the way an embryo develops—for body-plan morphogenesis—then DNA sequences can mutate indefinitely and still not produce a new body plan, regardless of the amount of time and the number of mutational trials available to the evolutionary process. Genetic mutations are simply the wrong tool for the job at hand." Stephen Meyer - Darwin's Doubt (p. 281) https://uncommondescent.com/epigenetics/epigenetics-why-it-is-a-problem-for-darwinism/ How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome. - 2013 Excerpt: Research dating back to the 1930s has shown that genetic change is the result of cell-mediated processes, not simply accidents or damage to the DNA. This cell-active view of genome change applies to all scales of DNA sequence variation, from point mutations to large-scale genome rearrangements and whole genome duplications (WGDs). This conceptual change to active cell inscriptions controlling RW genome functions has profound implications for all areas of the life sciences. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23876611 bornagain77

Finaly, most of most multi-cellular genomes are made up of repeats and transposons and other rubbish.

How did you determine that repeats and transposons are rubbish? And how does unguided/ blind watchmaker evolution explain multi-cellular genomes? Endosymbiosis only gets you so far and that is still far away from Eukaryota. Joe

ID theory strongly suggests that all of the information stored in the genome results in the creation, timing, and control of functions...

That is incorrect. ID is OK with redundant features and ID is also OK with anomalies. Joe

Nick Matzke is right to bring up this point. ID theory strongly suggests that all of the information stored in the genome results in the creation, timing, and control of functions -- and further, that information is not wasted (i.e. junk). Therefore more than 1600Mbps of information should result in a great many functions as yet unidentified. Acknowledging this does not negate ID theory. Don't be afraid of science. rhampton7

Dr. Matzke's argument in a nut shell, "I have no laboratory evidence of unguided Darwinian processes ever creating anything of biological significance, but I personally know, because of my superior Theistic reasoning, that God would not have created smaller genomes because I would not have done it that way. Therefore, by such flawless logic based on my Theistic beliefs, I therefore know Darwinism to be true." Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of theology? - Dilley S. - 2013 Abstract This essay analyzes Theodosius Dobzhansky's famous article, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," in which he presents some of his best arguments for evolution. I contend that all of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon sectarian claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. Moreover, Dobzhansky's theology manifests several tensions, both in the epistemic justification of his theological claims and in their collective coherence. I note that other prominent biologists--such as Mayr, Dawkins, Eldredge, Ayala, de Beer, Futuyma, and Gould--also use theology-laden arguments. I recommend increased analysis of the justification, complexity, and coherence of this theology. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23890740 Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise's Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous "God-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way" arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do.,,, ,,,with respect to one of the most famous texts in 20th-century biology, Theodosius Dobzhansky's essay "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (1973). Although its title is widely cited as an aphorism, the text of Dobzhansky's essay is rarely read. It is, in fact, a theological treatise. As Dilley (2013, p. 774) observes: "Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist's arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky's arguments.",, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1089971.html of related interest are these fairly recent videos by Dr. Giem on the fallacious Junk DNA argument from Darwinists: Biological Information - Not Junk After All 11-29-2014 by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO-7kVBA_JM In the book "Biological Information: New Perspectives" the chapter entitled "Not Junk After All: Non-Protein-Coding DNA Carries Extensive Biological Information" discusses the various functions of DNA and finds that non-functional DNA is a small minority. Biological Information – (The Dan Graur incident) Criticizing ENCODE 12-13-2014 by Paul Giem – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhlFJO1WqVk of interest: Podcast - Richard Sternberg PhD - On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 2 (Major Differences in higher level chromosome spatial organization) 5:30 minute mark quote: "Basically the dolphin genome is almost wholly identical to the human genome,, yet no one would argue that bottle-nose dolphins are our sister species" http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-2/ Podcast - Richard Sternberg PhD - On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 5 (emphasis on ENCODE and the loss of the term 'gene' as a accurate description in biology and how that loss undermines the modern synthesis of neo-Darwinism) http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-5/ bornagain77

Nick Matzke:

What are the implications if species 1 has a genome of 60 Mbp and species 2 has a genome of 1700 Mbp, and the species are virtually identical...

Virtually identical, except for their DNA. Got it. Virtually identical. As long as we ignore the elephant in the room. Mung

NickMatzke_UD: What are the implications if species 1 has a genome of 60 Mbp and species 2 has a genome of 1700 Mbp (...)

The self-organizing mystery increases by a multitude. How do you keep a large genome from becoming hopelessly entangled?

SLT on the human genome: According to the usual comparison, it’s as if you had to pack 39 km of extremely thin thread into a tennis ball. Moreover, this thread is divided into 46 pieces (individual chromosomes) averaging, in our tennis-ball analogy, over 0.8 km long. Can it be at all possible not only to pack the chromosomes into the nucleus, but also to keep them from becoming hopelessly entangled? (...) All we can say currently is that we know some of the players addressing the problem. For example, there are enzymes called “topoisomerases” whose task is to help manage the spatial organization of chromosomes. Demonstrating a spatial insight and dexterity that might amaze those of us who have struggled to sort out tangled masses of thread, these enzymes manage to make just the right local cuts to the strands in order to relieve strain , allow necessary movement of genes or regions of the chromosome, and prevent a hopeless mass of knots. Some topoisomerases cut just one strand of the double helix, allow it to wind or unwind around the other strand, and then reconnect the severed ends. This alters the supercoiling of the DNA. Other topoisomerases cut both strands, pass a loop of the chromosome through the gap thus created, and then seal the gap again. (Imagine trying this with miles of string crammed into a tennis ball!)

Box

Nick, is the percentage of junk similar between the 60 Mbp and 1700 Mbp? ppolish

What are the implications if species 1 has a genome of 60 Mbp and species 2 has a genome of 1700 Mbp, and the species are virtually identical — they are in the same genus, they both have similar flowers, similar traps, similar leaves, they are both photosynthetic, etc.

The implications are that unguided evolution didn't have anything to do with it. BTW there are intelligently designed systems that are redundant, meaning they have many parts that are not required but are there for back-up. So what we have is Nick Matzke, ignorant of existing intelligent designs and thinking that means something. Joe

C'mon guys...think for a second. What are the implications if species 1 has a genome of 60 Mbp and species 2 has a genome of 1700 Mbp, and the species are virtually identical -- they are in the same genus, they both have similar flowers, similar traps, similar leaves, they are both photosynthetic, etc. The ID position is ZOMG ALL OR ALMOST ALL DNA IS FUNCTIONAL!,,, JUNK DNA IZ A MYTH. If that's true, why can species 1 get by with only 3.5% of the genome of species 2? NickMatzke_UD

The Unknown Origin of Pterosaurs - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP6htc371fM Bird Evolution vs. The Actual Evidence - video and notes http://vimeo.com/30926629 Bat Evolution? - No Transitional Fossils! - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6003501/ bornagain77

I’d think it would be nearly impossible to have a biological finding that didn’t correlate with something in nature – geography, climate, neighboring species, fauna, historical events.

And evolutionary biology gives us the framework to explain test and even predict (did you read the pterosaur paper..) those correlations for genome size. What does ID have? wd400

as to: "We now know of many other correlates of genome size, and they make sense in an evolutionary framework." translation, "Although we have no laboratory evidence of blind evolution creating anything, and although blind evolution is not even a proper science in the first place since it has no mathematical falsification criteria, we Darwinists can still make up an endless series of imaginary 'just so' stories about how any biological feature was arrived at by blind evolution!" "There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation of such a vast subject." James Shapiro, molecular biologist, National Review, Sept. 16, 1996 EVOLUTIONARY JUST-SO STORIES Excerpt: ,,,The term “just-so story” was popularized by Rudyard Kipling’s 1902 book by that title which contained fictional stories for children. Kipling says the camel got his hump as a punishment for refusing to work, the leopard’s spots were painted on him by an Ethiopian, and the kangaroo got its powerful hind legs after being chased all day by a dingo. Kipling’s just-so stories are as scientific as the Darwinian accounts of how the amoeba became a man. Lacking real scientific evidence for their theory, evolutionists have used the just-so story to great effect. Backed by impressive scientific credentials, the Darwinian just-so story has the aura of respectability. Biologist Michael Behe observes: “Some evolutionary biologists--like Richard Dawkins--have fertile imaginations. Given a starting point, they almost always can spin a story to get to any biological structure you wish” (Darwin’s Black Box).,,, http://www.wayoflife.org/database/evolutionary_just_so_stories.html "Grand Darwinian claims rest on undisciplined imagination" Dr. Michael Behe - 29:24 mark of following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s6XAXjiyRfM#t=1762s bornagain77

The lack of correlation has been known since at least 1971.

Ok, that would indicate that it's not "interestingly" there's a variation.

We now know of many other correlates of genome size, and they make sense in an evolutionary framework.

I'd think it would be nearly impossible to have a biological finding that didn't correlate with something in nature - geography, climate, neighboring species, fauna, historical events. Silver Asiatic

WD, ALL observations can be fitted to special creation/emergence. Just like evolution lol. Although evolution itself is not fundamental - it also emerges. How did evolution emerge? Yep, it was special:) ppolish

The lack of correlation has been known since at least 1971.We now know of many other correlates of genome size, and they make sense in an evolutionary framework. So, you can go read those papers and learn about what we know (and still have to learn) about genome size evolution, or you can keep looking for ID talking poitns in press release. wd400

The conflict appears for me where they say "interestingly" there was a lack of correlation and you followed by saying that it is "well known". The press release stated that reasons for the range of sizes is 'largely enigmatic' and I don't think that the summary of the paper (in the abstract) does anything to make that seem incorrect:

This comparative, phylogeny-based analysis of genome sizes and karyotypes in Genlisea provides essential data for selection of suitable species for comparative whole-genome analyses, as well as for further studies on both the molecular and cytogenetic basis of genome reduction in plants.

Their summary did not offer reasons for the variation in sizes but rather they concluded that the analysis "provided data" for "further studies". It sounds like the reasons remain enigmatic. That's why it sounds to me like you're understating the problem and why it seems like a conflict. Silver Asiatic

All the scientists say in that press release is that genome size is not correlated with organismal complexity. That's well known and not up for debate. As the papers I linked to above make clear, evolutionary biology gives us a framework under which to understand much of the variation in genome size. I doubt these researchers disagree. So where's the conflict? wd400

wd400

2) Research institute puts out a press release, stressing the novelty of the work, with the press officer (and usually not the scientists themselves…) making free with words like “enigmatic”

It is what the scientists said, and that's why I pointed out the conflict. It seems that you tried to spin that fact in your comment above. For myself, I'd rather see you simply admit that you disagree with this view that your fellow biologists offered. I'm sensing a bias in your own response otherwise -- seeming to cover over an obvious conflict by blaming it on press officers. The same scientists who make these statements in the press are doing the supposed objective research which the public is supposed to trust. Silver Asiatic

What observations would not fit special creation/emergence? wd400

WD, Special Creation I mean Special Emergence certainly fits the evidence much better than Oops, ppolish

wd400:

1) Researchers do some cool work on a system that helps us understand biology a little better

They don't use the blind watchmaker thesis to guide their research. Joe

SA, it's more like this 1) Researchers do some cool work on a system that helps us understand biology a little better 2) Research institute puts out a press release, stressing the novelty of the work, with the press officer (and usually not the scientists themselves...) making free with words like "enigmatic" 3) IDer reads press release, since it supports their existing biases they go not further and start spouting off the same old rubbish about who clueless evolutionary biologists are. 4) Evolutionary biolgists explain that there is more to science that the press releases, provide links to papers explaining variation in genome size 5) IDer goes off on some tangent about "apologists", doesn't learnanything about biology in the mean time and it all set to go for the next press release. PPolish, Small genomes fit into small nuclei which fit into small cells, which are energetically more efficient. There is also probably so tiny cost to replicating junk DNA too. Not big enough to make a difference in most multicellular species, and certainly not in those with small population sizes. As to whether this trait evolved, hummingbirds have smaller geneomes that their sister group (swifts) which have smaler genomes that most other birds. By it's nature special creation can't be ruled out, but it hardly seems necessarily to explain this observation. wd400

Nick Matzke:

We’ve known about this sort of variability in genome size literally for 40+ years — it was one of the main motivations for postulating junk DNA in the first place — yet the ID movement has completely ignored the implications of huge variability in genome size for the junk DNA debate.

We've known about it. Nick Matzke:

Instead, the ID guys mindlessly cite the hype-iest parts of ENCODE project, which was also ignorant of huge variability in genome size in its early publications, and scaled its claims way back once this was pointed out.

We've not known about it. Mung

Nick Matzke:

ID people actually doing a capable review of an issue?

Obviously that is beyond your capabilities, Nick.

The real story here is that these examples of huge variability in genome size between very similar species in the same genus are a huge contradiction of the people who say all/most of large genomes is functional DNA,

LoL! Nick, your position can't even explain the existence of DNA. That you don't see that as a problem is very telling. Joe

WD, hummingbirds were created with a small genome. They did not evolve a small genome lol. Lack of "junk" makes one "energetic"? Why? ppolish

That embarrassing episode for you Dr. Matzke, on carnivorous plants, also reminds me of the embarrassment you endured from your attempted deceptive literature bluff on molecular machines:

Calling Nick Matzke's literature bluff on molecular machines - DonaldM UD blogger - April 2013 Excerpt: So now, 10 years later in 2006 Matzke and Pallen come along with this review article. The interesting thing about this article is that, despite all the hand waving claims about all these dozens if not hundreds of peer reviewed research studies showing how evolution built a flagellum, Matzke and Pallen didn’t have a single such reference in their bibliography. Nor did they reference any such study in the article. Rather, the article went into great lengths to explain how a researcher might go about conducting a study to show how evolution could have produced the system. Well, if all those articles and studies were already there, why not just point them all out? In shorty, the entire article was a tacit admission that Behe had been right all along. Fast forward to now and Andre’s question directed to Matzke. We’re now some 17 years after Behe’s book came out where he made that famous claim. And, no surprise, there still is not a single peer reviewed research study that provides the Darwinian explanation for a bacterial flagellum (or any of the other irreducibly complex biological systems Behe mentioned in the book). We’re almost 7 years after the Matzke & Pallen article. So where are all these research studies? There’s been ample time for someone to do something in this regard. Matzke will not answer the question because there is no answer he can give…no peer reviewed research study he can reference, other than the usual literature bluffing he’s done in the past. per Uncommon Descent

The question is simple Dr. Matzke, where did the information come from???, No amount of literature bluffing by you will make that question go away!,,

Hopeless Matzke -David Berlinski & Tyler Hampton August 18, 2013 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/08/hopeless_matzke075631.html Calling Nick Matzke’s Bluff - June 21, 2013 https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/calling-nick-matzkes-bluff/

Verse and Music

Acts 5:39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God." Brenton Brown - Joyful Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfJWaQJDi7k

Merry Christmas Dr. Matzke! bornagain77

Dr. Matzke, aside from the fact that consistent body plans despite varying genome sizes is much more of a scientific problem for the molecular reductionism model of neo-Darwinism than it is a problem for ID (which holds higher level epigenetic information in the cell body to be far more important than the information in DNA is),,

Body Plans Are Not Mapped-Out by the DNA - Jonathan Wells - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meR8Hk5q_EM Darwin's Doubt narrated by Paul Giem - The Origin of Body Plans - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUaMy2xdaup5ROw3u0_mK8t&v=rLl6wrqd1e0&feature=player_detailpage#t=290

,,Dr. Matzke, I seem to remember that you did not fare too well at all in your last attempt to say Carnivorous plants were proof of Darwinian evolution:

Carnivorous Plants - Wolf-Ekkehard Lonnig, Max-Planck-Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Excerpt: Moreover, it appears to be hard even to imagine clear-cut selective advantages for all the thousands of postulated intermediate steps in a gradual scenario, not to mention the formulation and examination of scientific (i.e. testable) hypotheses for the origin of the complex carnivorous plant structures examined above. http://www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/sewell/articles/carn.pdf Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig: The Origin of Carnivorous Plants, Pt. 2 - audio podcast http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2013-06-26T17_03_15-07_00 Geneticist W.-E. Loennig replies to Darwinist Nick Matzke on Carnivorous Plants: - September 2011 https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/geneticist-w-e-loennig-replies-to-darwinist-nick-matzke-it-heats-up/ Irreducible Complexity, 18 steps of the Venus Flytrap are listed in the following article: The Venus Flytrap, an Improbable Wonder that Baffled Darwin - Oct. 14, 2013 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/the_venus_flytr077891.html Carnivorous plant fossil from 40 million years ago – Dec. 2014 Excerpt: The Roridulaceae genus Roridula is a quirk of botanical carnivory, as the plants depend on relationships with other organisms to successfully digest their prey. They trap prey using sticky hairs on their leaves, but depend on a symbiotic species of capsid bug to digest them and then consume their droppings instead. One bug’s demise is another’s gain. https://uncommondescent.com/plants/carnivorous-plant-fossil-from-40-million-years-ago/

bornagain77

Dr. bornagain77

"We’ve known about this sort of variability in genome size literally for 40+ years" And you've know about Cambrian Explosion literally for 150+ years. Good for you. ppolish

It's always good to hear evolutionary apologists explain that, contrary to what we just read, anomalies and 'enigmas' in the theory don't exist. Evolutionary scientist: "We were surprised by the finding. It's an enigma". ID commenter: "The scientist just said there was an enigma and surprise". UD Darwin apologist: "There's nothing to be surprised about. No enigma. We all know this - just as predicted." I could be a Darwin apologist myself some day - I hope! I was able to give a clear explanation of the article in a brief summary: "Don't worry, it's ok!" Silver Asiatic

ID people actually doing a capable review of an issue? Let's not get crazy here. The real story here is that these examples of huge variability in genome size between very similar species in the same genus are a huge contradiction of the people who say all/most of large genomes is functional DNA, and who claim that junk DNA is a myth of dogmatic Darwinists. We've known about this sort of variability in genome size literally for 40+ years -- it was one of the main motivations for postulating junk DNA in the first place -- yet the ID movement has completely ignored the implications of huge variability in genome size for the junk DNA debate. Instead, the ID guys mindlessly cite the hype-iest parts of ENCODE project, which was also ignorant of huge variability in genome size in its early publications, and scaled its claims way back once this was pointed out. NickMatzke_UD

Evoltuionary biology actually provides us with some pretty good explanations of varation in genome size, if you bother to learn about them. First up, genome size correlates pretty well with the historical effective population size of species. This pattern is suggest the cost of a little more junk DNA is very small, so small populations in which selection is weak are unable to prevent the accumulation of junk. We are a case in point. Second, flying animals have smaller genomes on average than there grounded relatives (probably inlcuding pterosaurs !). This is related tot he above, in that junk DNA is likely to be more costly for creatures living on an energetic edge. Finaly, most of most multi-cellular genomes are made up of repeats and transposons and other rubbish. So some of the evolution of genome size is explained not so much by the "host's" evolution, but the evolutionary dynamics of transposons (in humans they are almost all dead, but in other creatures there are many intact transposons that are still copying themselves) So, as I say, you might want to look into these topics. wd400

The reasons for the wide range of genome size found in different species remain largely enigmatic. “Interestingly, the size of an organism’s genome does not correlate with its complexity or evolutionary level.

The reasons "remain enigmatic". Evolutionary predictions didn't explain this part. The most well-supported theory in the history of science doesn't understand the correlation or lack thereof. Ok, let's forget about explaining the origin of carnivorous plants themselves and the change in digestive process from photosynthesizer to carnivore. Let's work on something that is still too difficult for evolution to explain: "One genome is big. The other is small." Don't worry, it's ok! Evolutionary theory is absolutely certain. So what if genome sizes vary widely within a genus?

Although unicellular organisms like brewer’s yeast, as well as some plant species, have far less DNA in their cells than humans do, many plants have much larger genomes than ours,” Fleischmann explains.

I'm glad Fleischmann explained that. That's what's so great about evolutionary theory. We can measure the size of genomes and explain that some are bigger and some smaller. What more could you want? Maybe plants are smarter than humans and that's why they need bigger genomes. This is science - it's all very reasonable.

The genus Genlisea, with its broad range of variation in genome size between different species, therefore offers a perfect group of model organisms to study the evolutionary pressures that determine genome size. “Genlisea is an ideal model system for understanding the molecular basis for genome reduction and the mechanisms that drive it, especially since the complete genome of G. aurea has already been sequenced and published,” says Günther Heubl.

It's ideal for "maybe someday being able to understand" what causes this variation and non-correlation. But until then, there are no weaknesses in evolutionary theory and our speculations and assumptions are 100% valid for now because nobody else has anything better. When we get more-interesting-sounding guesses, those will be 110% valid. Silver Asiatic