Dave S.

“To knock out 2 megabases and not have an effect — that’s remarkable,” says Jim Hudson, a geneticist at Open Biosystems in Huntsville, Alabama. “It can’t be true,” says a skeptical Arend Sidow of Stanford University.

Arend Sidow is not a dumb or unqualified guy. He’s the principal researcher at Stanford University’s Sidow Lab. In fact this is his lab’s primary area of investigation: Much of our work rests on a simple, fundamental, principle of evolution: functionally or structurally important sites in the genome are subject to selective constraints;

So why can’t it be true? Because if evolutionary theory (natural selection) is true then it MUST BE TRUE that conserved (constrained) regions of DNA have biological activity. Arend won’t entertain natural selection at the DNA sequence level not being true. The knockout experiment, if there is no mistake, overturns his faith in evolutionary theory. So the experiment must be flawed. “It just can’t be true.” Arend is having a crisis of faith. Isn’t that just precious?

THE BIOLOGY OF GENOMES MEETING: Disposable DNA Puzzles Researchers
Elizabeth Pennisi
11 JUNE 2004 VOL 304 SCIENCE

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Yet another parallel with human-engineered systems is discovered in the living cell – digital counters that control the number of protein molecules expressed. The researchers obviously aren’t electronic engineers as this particular circuit isn’t analogous to a clock. It’s a counter circuit. It counts from zero to a preset maximum number of operations then stops when the maximum count is reached. This is a very common function employed in digital electronic devices often implemented with what’s called a serial shift register. The shift register starts out containing all zeros. One bits are fed into the input and zeros shift out the other end like putting marbles into an empty tube. When the shift register is full then ones start coming out the other end. Some action is taken when the first one bit emerges at the output. Shift registers can have any arbitrary number of bits.

Isn’t it fascinating how many things conceived by intelligent human designers are found in the molecular machinery of living cells? But hey, ignore the man behind the curtain. Nothing to see here. Click your heels together three times while repeating “It’s all just chance & necessity!” 🙄

Clocking In And Out Of Gene Expression Read More ›

To my surprise and delight I found Behe mentioning Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler four times in the opening few paragraphs of Appendix A of The Edge of Evolution titled I, Nanobot. Behe appears to have been as impressed by Engines as I was 20 years ago. Engines was what made me realize cells aren’t just sort of like robotic machines but rather they are quite literally robotic machines – the same kind of robotic machines that we envision ourselves creating in the not too distant future. The following quote is from the notes on page 301 of The Edge of Evolution: 3. The terms “robot” and “machine” applied to the cell are not meant as analogies – Read More ›

Sean Carroll writes a review of Michael Behe’s new book “Edge of Evolution” for Science Magazine titled God as Genetic Engineer. Professor Behe can’t respond to this for at least a week so let’s give him a hand by fisking it. Please keep your comments topical, focused, and well supported by evidence arguing against the reviewer’s conclusions. Read More ›

Behe’s focus and where he finds major problems with chance and necessity is in nano-molecular cellular machinery rather than the gross anatomical level such as scales becoming feathers or limbs turning into wings. That is also where I find the NeoDarwinian explanations most deficient. In that context could someone please describe for me the “dynamic fitness landscape” that could drive the evolution of this: Good luck.

Dirty snow may warm Arctic as much as greenhouse gases

“In the past two centuries, the Arctic has warmed about 1.6 degrees. Dirty snow caused .5 to 1.5 degrees of warming, or up to 94 percent of the observed change, the scientists determined.” Read More ›

UD Subscriber Magnan pinches his nose closed long enough to fisk Mark Chu-Carrol’s vitriolic spittle strewn imbecilic diatribe “review” of Michael Behe’s new book The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism in a comment here. I reproduce it in its entirety. Now that someone has responded to it point by point I hope those who have been losing sleep over it can get some rest. Read More ›

The following poem entitled “First they came…” is inscribed at the Boston Holocaust Memorial. Those who believe Guillermo Gonzalez’ involvement with ID outside the Iowa State campus can be justly used in consideration of whether or not to grant him tenure would be well served to think about this. First they came… They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they Read More ›

Great article by David Limbaugh which appeared in today’s Washington Times.

“Whether or not blind faith in man-made, catastrophic global warming has become a new religion, many of its adherents, ironically, embrace it with the same type of unquestioning zeal they sloppily attribute to and summarily condemn in Christians.” -David Limbaugh

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NASA’s Top Official Questions Global Warming NASA Administrator Michael Griffin Questions Need to Combat Warming “I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists,” Griffin told Inskeep. “I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.” “To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change,” Griffin said. “I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular Read More ›

This map is the result of 8 scientists poring over satellite data for 18 months. It shows how plant growth (NPP or net primary productivity) around the world has changed in the past 20 years of global warming and CO2 buildup in the atmosphere. The result is a 6% increase when all the globe’s vegetation is tallied up and averaged. The research appeared in Science. The article I got the picture from is at NASA titled Global Garden. Why is it that we don’t hear about this in the popular press? We are inundated with conjecture based on computer models of CO2 induced warming and the supposed ill effects of it. Yet when the facts are allowed to speak we Read More ›

I was reading the 2007 IPCC report’s 2007 Physical Science Basis and it came as a surprise how much variance there is from year to year in how atmospheric CO2 increases. CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels remains relatively constant but the amount of that CO2 that actually stays in the atmosphere varies by over 100% from one year to the next. The mechanisms behind this variance are only partially understood. One thing we do know however is that old growth forest locks up huge amounts of CO2 in wood. Plant and animal use of CO2 is one of the mechanisms behind the variance. It seems like it might be much more economically viable and beneficially desirable to pursue reforestation instead of reducing CO2 emissions. A long-lived tree will lock up CO2 in wood for 50 to 100 years or more while it’s alive. If it’s harvested for lumber to build homes and other wooden structures that will keep the CO2 locked up in wood for another 50 – 100 years or more. By the time the wooden structures release the stored CO2 from rotting or burning we’ll have used up all the fossil fuel reserves and won’t have excess CO2 to dispose of anymore.

In a nutshell – cosmic rays induce particle formation in the atmosphere. Water droplets coalesce around these particles producing clouds. Clouds reflect sunlight back into space. The more clouds the cooler it is and the fewer clouds the hotter it is. The sun’s magnetic field deflects more or fewer cosmic rays depending on its intensity. Its magnetic field waxes and wanes substantially over time. But that’s not the whole story. A larger variable than how much or little deflection the sun provides is the strength of the cosmic rays coming from outside the solar system. As the sun orbits the galactic center it passes through regions of higher and lower cosmic ray density. Moreover exploding stars (supernovas) unpredictably increase the Read More ›

The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) drastically understates the warming potential of soot (black carbon) in its report to policy makers. The IPCC has an agenda and that agenda is to blame manmade carbon dioxide emission for climate change. Europe and Asia emit most of the soot from burning coal, wood, dung, and diesel in open fires or without particulate filters in stoves, chimneys, smokestacks, and exhaust pipes. The United States has been restricting soot emissions in Draconian fashion since the Clean Air Act of 1963. The IPCC agenda is really about blaming the United States. I document all this below the fold.