Most interesting. But what does the professor mean when he says, “we hypothesize that an evolutionary ‘choice’ was made to be born with this knowledge in order to save time during the sensitive development period.” So evolution is a designer that makes choices? But, as Michael Behe would ask, “How, exactly?” He can’t walk away from the problem just by putting “choice” in quotation marks.
Genetics
Mice from opposite coasts of North America show same the changes in genes
The house mouse, beloved of cats, only arrived in North America with Europeans, so there aren’t millions of years to make up a story about how things happened.
Larry Moran to write new book: Claims genome is 90% junk
If he wants to pick a fight with ENCODE, grab a seat.
Mammalian DNA can be airborne too…
We heard just recently about horizontal gene transfer between herring and smelt. Will we be hearing next about horizontal gene transfer involving mammals via airborne DNA? Don’t rule it out.
Rob Sheldon: Biologists’ use of the term “half-life” shows just how tenuous many of their propositions really are
Recently, our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon took issue with the use of the term “half-life” to describe the survival of DNA in fossils. He says the term has a specific meaning with respect to radioactive decay that just does not apply to other events in nature. In the biology paper at issue, with “half-life” Read More…
A zoologist on that microbe that copies its DNA in a way “unknown to science”
Tim Standish: Simpler systems do not necessarily come first because simple can be a lot harder to come up with than complex. Yes, that seems counterintuitive, but the history of technology bears that out. In some ways you could say the same about art.
At New Scientist: “single-celled organism that lacks most of the molecular equipment needed to kick-start DNA replication”
It’s a protist? “Protists are a group of loosely connected, mostly unicellular eukaryotic organisms that are not plants, animals or fungi. There is no single feature such as evolutionary history or morphology common to all these organisms and they are unofficially placed under a separate kingdom called Protista.” In short, just the sort of life form that might be doing something really different. Because nature is full of intelligence, there are probably many alternative programs out there. It all didn’t just somehow happen randomly once.
Fifty different genes for eye color?
You’ve heard this one before. From the study group: Eye color is “much more complex than previously thought.”
Dawkins’s claim: “every gene delivers approximately the same tree of life” contested at Nature Portfolio Ecology & Evolution
You know, Dawkins may be losing his shine. New Scientist was making similar types of noise last October. It’s now okay to say when there’s something wrong with this stuff.
Researchers: Genes help dogs understand pointing
Chimpanzees don’t easily understand the pointing gesture even though they have fingers. Puppies don’t have fingers but can easily learn to understand the pointing gesture.
Some cells increase gene expression after death
This cell activity, involving study of brain tissue removed during operations, is an exercise in futility. Maybe those genes are kind of like a school bureaucracy happily presiding over a school with no students or teachers.
New form of human DNA found – a four-stranded knot
Researchers: The new shape looks entirely different to the double-stranded DNA double helix… “We think the coming and going of the i-motifs is a clue to what they do. It seems likely that they are there to help switch genes on or off, and to affect whether a gene is actively read or not.” Just a random swish of chemicals, right?
DNA may be the computer of the future — because, of course, life is designed
We are running out of conventional space to store information and life forms’ DNA stores it much more efficiently.
We are similar to Ediacaran animals? Well, that’s stasis for you!
The similarity doesn’t sound convincing but then Darwinian narratives don’t need to sound convincing; they just need to sound comforting to Darwinians.
Cornelius Hunter now has a YouTube channel, Darwin’s God
Hunter: Not only is there is no compelling scientific explanation for how the genetic code could have evolved, there also are significant problems with the theory.