A few years ago Paul Nelson debated Joel Velasco on the topic of design and evolution. Nelson masterfully demonstrated design in nature. For his part Velasco also provided an excellent defense of evolution. But the Epicurean claim that the world arose via random chance is not easy to defend, and Velasco’s task would be challenging. Consider, for example, the orphans which Nelson explained are a good example of taxonomically-restricted designs. Such designs make no sense on evolution, and though Velasco responded with many rebuttals, none were very convincing. Since that debate the orphan problem has become worse, as highlighted by a new study of brochosomes. Read more
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As to this claim: “It is possible that secreta exported from the organism may evolve especially rapidly because they are not strongly constrained by interactions with other traits.”
That claim is falsified by the fact that many orphans are now found to play essential roles,,,
As alluded to above, and completely contrary to evolutionary thought, these ‘new’ ORFan genes are found to be just as essential as ‘old’ genes for maintaining life:
Moreover, besides Orphan genes, “Alternative splicing can produce variant proteins and expression patterns as different as the products of different genes.”
On top of that “the total number of proteins in human cells, produced by the approx. 20,000 genes is estimated to be (via alternative splicing) between 250,000 to one million.”
Moreover, “alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,””
Simply put, Alternative splicing, (one gene coding for multiple different proteins), patterns (that vary widely between even supposedly closely related species), blows Darwinian assumptions out of the water: