Genomics

Walter Remine mentioned in passing about a parasite that slowly evolved to lose all its organs except for its anus. Unfortunately he didn’t recall the name of the creature or whether he got all the details right, but rather than peppered moths, if that creature really exists, it should be the poster child of Darwinism. I’ve argued almost from the beginning that most observed evolution in real time is loss of function. Loss of function is called reductive evolution. And the fact that most selectively favored adaptations involving function is loss of function rather than acquisition of function is what I refer to as Behe’s Rule. But far be for evolutionists to salute creationists and IDists who have pointed out Read More ›

Bacteria demonstrate intra-species communication that is species specific using a partner with a communication molecule. Bacteria are also “multilingual” with a generic trade language for interspecies communication. Bacteria control tasks by signal producing and receiving receptors with a signal carrier. The tasks bacteria conduct depend on the concentration they sense of self bacteria versus generic species concentration. e.g. Bacteria control pathogenicity with quorum sensing. The detailed (small) sRNA required for these control mechanisms is now beginning to be desciphered. See below. Question:
Did bacteria “invent” their communication and control methods via evolutionary stochastic processes?
Or do these constitute Complex Specified Information and thus evidence design? Read More ›

How do we distinguish systems formed by natural laws, from stochastic processes, and from systems designed by intelligent agents? See Demski’s Explanatory Filter at ARN and at the IDEA Center. Now at Harvard’s Molecular Systems Lab, Peng Yin is currently focused on engineering programmable molecular systems that are inspired by biology, such as the information-directed, self-assembly of nucleic acid (DNA/RNA) structures and devices, and on exploiting such systems to do useful molecular work, such as probing and programming biological processes for imaging and therapeutic applications