Alternative Splicing Damage Control Still Underway

correction to post #1 Finding very different regulatory 'alternative splicing codes/schemes' regulating 'alternative splicing events' bornagain77

I recently jotted down some thoughts of mine that reflect what I imagine the thoughts of a reasonably reasonable NDE advocate might be like, in light of recent developments. They continue to seem apt when reading Dr. Hunrer's blog... Which is probably what got me to thinking them in the first place :

We always proposed RM/NS. Turns out it was not up to the job. Something more sophisticated, something more complicated was needed. (though not all of us would admit as much) Then some of those complicated mechanisms began to be discovered. Finally we could really sink our teeth into how some beneficial changes take place. (The stubborn among us just chock the newly discovered mechanisms up to the old go-to of RM/NS... just in an earlier epoch of course) But then (except in the minds of the stubborn) early development, if not origins, questions become all the more curious. How did these more advanced, more complicated mechanisms arise? What are we to make of the notion that RM/NS could not design the life we see around us therefore it must have stochastically designed the mechanisms that actually could do the work of designing the life we see around us? It seems that these relatively recent discoveries multiply the work needed to be done by RM/NS many times over, and even more spectacularly, push the hard work backwards in time, rendering the constraints more significant and the entire enterprise of the old stubborn paradigm much less plausible.

MrMosis

As to,,, Evolution by Splicing -Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. - Ruth Williams - December 20, 2012 Excerpt: A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?” ,,, A commonly discussed mechanism was variable levels of gene expression, but both Blencowe and Chris Burge,,, found that gene expression is relatively conserved among species. On the other hand, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe. ,,, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33782/title/Evolution-by-Splicing/ This finding is far more devastating than the authors let on in the paper. Finding different regulatory 'alternative splicing codes/schemes' regulating the gene expression of different species is devastating because of neo-Darwinism's inability to account for any changes of any particular code once it is in place. This applies to either drastic of minor changes of any particular code. This applies to Alternative Splicing codes, Genetic codes, Histone codes, Acetylation codes, or any other code found, or that may be found, in life,,, "In the last ten years, at least 20 different natural information codes were discovered in life, each operating to arbitrary conventions (not determined by law or physicality). Examples include protein address codes [Ber08B], acetylation codes [Kni06], RNA codes [Fai07], metabolic codes [Bru07], cytoskeleton codes [Gim08], histone codes [Jen01], and alternative splicing codes [Bar10]. Donald E. Johnson – Programming of Life – pg.51 - 2010 The reason why drastically different alternative splicing codes/schemes between closely related species is devastating to neo-Darwinian (bottom up) evolution is partly seen by understanding 'Shannon Channel Capacity': “Because of Shannon channel capacity that previous (first) codon alphabet had to be at least as complex as the current codon alphabet (DNA code), otherwise transferring the information from the simpler alphabet into the current alphabet would have been mathematically impossible” Donald E. Johnson – Bioinformatics: The Information in Life Shannon Information - Channel Capacity - Perry Marshall - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5457552/ But the reason why this is so devastating to neo-Darwinian (bottom up) evolution is best understood by taking a look at what Richard Dawkins said about what would happen if one were to 'randomly' change the genetic code once it is in place: Venter vs. Dawkins on the Tree of Life - and Another Dawkins Whopper - March 2011 Excerpt:,,, But first, let's look at the reason Dawkins gives for why the code must be universal: "The reason is interesting. Any mutation in the genetic code itself (as opposed to mutations in the genes that it encodes) would have an instantly catastrophic effect, not just in one place but throughout the whole organism. If any word in the 64-word dictionary changed its meaning, so that it came to specify a different amino acid, just about every protein in the body would instantaneously change, probably in many places along its length. Unlike an ordinary mutation...this would spell disaster." (2009, p. 409-10) OK. Keep Dawkins' claim of universality in mind, along with his argument for why the code must be universal, and then go here (linked site listing 23 variants of the genetic code). Simple counting question: does "one or two" equal 23? That's the number of known variant genetic codes compiled by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. By any measure, Dawkins is off by an order of magnitude, times a factor of two. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/03/venter_vs_dawkins_on_the_tree_044681.html Bottom line is that if any regulatory code, such as the alternative splicing code, is 'randomly changed' in part, it throws the entire code out of whack and will be 'instantly catastrophic', to use Richard Dawkins most appropiate words: bornagain77