DNA Repair Proteins: Efficiently Finding Genome Errors

_{Cornelius Hunter

March 15, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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The heroics of the cell’s DNA repair system are well known, but new research is adding yet another incredible facet to the story. Experimentalists tagged DNA repair proteins with nanocrystals that light up. They then observed how they interact with DNA molecules. As reported: Read more

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off topic: For all our evolutionist friends who go to such great pains to strain out a gnat but so easily swallow a camel. (Matthew 23:24) I thought you might like this video showing a gnat staining. Fruit Fly Brains Ramp Up Activity During Flight http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4305649/fruit_fly_brains_ramp_up_activity_during_flight/bornagain77_{March 15, 2010
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hrun "Do you know if ‘blind molecules’ can or can not correct mistakes? Do you know that in order to correct or identify mistakes you need knowledge?" Thats right hrun, if the potato is too hot, just throw it back. Can you even conceptualize how a mistake could be corrected without first being identified as incorrect? Can you conceptualize how it might be reverted back to the correct value without having a correct value? Moreover, can you tell me which of the four grand theories of matter is responsible for initiating such a process by where mistakes are identified as being incorrect and a means to revert them back to correct values is set in motion? Is it Einstien's Relativity? How about quantum mechanics? Newtonian mechanics? Maxwell's eletromagnetic field? Is it an emergent property of matter that such a process comes about? What other examples of such material processes can we compare this to? Given that our universal experience with such systems only comes about as the product of an agent, what do we have as an contrary example so that we may have confidence that this system is merely a property of matter - as oppossed to just an assertion that it is? I'm genuinely asking for an answer here - what examples do we have that such systems come about without agency input? Are there any?Upright BiPed_{March 15, 2010
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One needs a functional repair system in the first place before the cell will be viable. Selection can't select for the precursors of a repair system because the cell would be already dead without the repair system already in place! The classic chicken-and-egg paradox (actully the pardox is solve, you need the chicken first, but that implies design).scordova_{March 15, 2010
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Hrun, Also, can you please explain why scientific skepticism is employed in science? What support does scientific skepticism have? Can assertions be made when only based on skepticism?Collin_{March 15, 2010
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Hrun, Here's an unsupported assertion: Stonehenge was intelligently designed. Do you disagree? If you agree, can you please explain the scientific principles you used to come to the conclusion that Stonehenge was designed? Can those same principles be used to determine whether or not DNA repair proteins were designed. Why or why not?Collin_{March 15, 2010
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Ooops, I missed Colin's post. Again, no supporting facts for the assertions.hrun0815_{March 15, 2010
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If there are repair mechanisms, this implies that RANDOM variations are actively resisted by the organism itself. It would appear some forms of variation are actively suppressed, others are let through. Variations therefore, when they happen, could for the most part be NON-RANDOM. When the repair mechanisms sufficiently fail this often leads to things like cancer. It is unreasonable to believe mechanisms which lead to things like cancer lead to integrated biological complexity. Plenty of empirical proof for this. With respect to cancer cells, we don't see natural selection within the organism enabling better and better features in the cell. Group selection fails and the organism dies. If there are repair mechanisms at the somatic level, there would reasonably be repair like mechanisms at the germline level. Which imply unless the repair mechanism are suppressed, large scale variation will be resisted. However, in general when such repair mechanisms are arrested, we see disasters! Spetner has speculated that the variation and mutation we see in the germline cells look too purposeful to be random. They seem to be variations by design. So it would seem the repair mechanisms, in those cases are not arrested, but operate in a way to permit some variation. Can selection sufficiently cull the bad from the good were such repair mechanisms arrested? Doubtful. In human populations, the number of bad trials that can be tolerated without the population being wiped out is about 3 per person on average (and that's assuming about 40 offspring per female!) But let's consider the activity on somatic cells as a guide. If DNA in every cell is being policed so vigrously, maybe millions of variations being actively deleted (not by selecion but by purposeful repair), on what grounds would we expect large scale random variations to result in viable organisms? Deletion and repair of random variation seems to be an essential feature. Evolutionary theories relying on random variation seem to appeal to what is obviously a bad thing for living organisms. For evolution to progress, the variations would have to be non-random. James Shapiro, one of Sternberg's colleagues, suggests mechanisms of non-random variation. Where Shaprio would part company with the ID community is the what created an engineered system that fascilitated non-random variation in the first place.scordova_{March 15, 2010
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Thanks Upright Biped and Collin. I appreciate the support...Joseph_{March 15, 2010
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hrun0815:
If they were not simply assertions, you would have supported them by facts about two posts ago.
That is an assertion. Also I think I did a pretty good job of explaining myself. Apparently you choked on that explanation.Joseph_{March 15, 2010
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Uh, Upright BiPed, Do you know if 'blind molecules' can or can not correct mistakes? Do you know that in order to correct or identify mistakes you need knowledge? Those are the assertions made by Joseph. Now we have three posts that do not support those assertions with any evidence. My guess is, there will be many more to follow-- and none of them will factually support those statements (which is why I call them assertions).hrun0815_{March 15, 2010
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Joseph, I think you make really good points. It seems very unlikely to me that a system that identifies and repairs problems in a complex code could not be designed. Call it personal incredulty maybe. But your argument makes a lot of sense to me. A repair mechanism does not seem likely to be the result of random mutation and natural selection.Collin_{March 15, 2010
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uh,hrun? Can you correct a mistake without identifying it though knowledge of what it should be? And then knowing how to correct it? Wow, that sure would go a long way towards proving your assertion that Joseph is simply making assertions.Upright BiPed_{March 15, 2010
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But unless you can counter my alleged assertions- how do you know they are assertions?
If they were not simply assertions, you would have supported them by facts about two posts ago.hrun0815_{March 15, 2010
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Perhaps you just think they are assertions. I understand that someone like you understands assertions because that is all your position has. But unless you can counter my alleged assertions- how do you know they are assertions? Perhaps your claim of assertion is the real assertion. I noticed yoiu didn't even try to answer my questions. That tells me who is doing the asserting...Joseph_{March 15, 2010
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It's funny. I point out statements that are mere assertions. I get back a whole long post in which none of the assertions actually gets supported by fact.hrun0815_{March 15, 2010
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Blind molecules can’t identify anything, let alone correct mistakes. hrun0815:
Assertion without supporting facts.
OK I just asked a glass of water if it could identify anything in the room and did not receive a response- yet. :) How long should I wait? I also told it that the regrigerator was a washing machine to see if it would correct my mistake. :) Heck the two aren't even the same color! To identify and correct mistakes requires knowledge.
Assertion without supporting facts.
You think so? Can you think of any examples to the contrary? How can you correct a mistake without a- identifying the mistake, which means you have to know one exists and b- know how to correct it, meaning out of all the other possibilities you have to make the correct choice? This knowledge is most likely in the form of a program similar to spellchecker.
Qualified assertion without supporting facts.
Call it an ID prediction. IOW it is in the software of life- DNA being part of the hardware.
This sentence I can’t decipher
Nothing to decipher. You are stuck in a two-dimensional realm. One that forces you to think that the DNA is the information. It isn't. It is 1- a carrier of the information, just as computer disc is a carrier and not the information; 2- it also is used to carry out the instructions. In computers there are wires and/ or fibers, gates, switches, processors, etc. that make sure the information gets to where it is supposed to go. In an organism the data is sent via RNA carriers, that can also become a component in the required system. See also: Biological Information in 3 DimensionsJoseph_{March 15, 2010
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Blind molecules can’t identify anything, let alone correct mistakes.
Assertion without supporting facts.
To identify and correct mistakes requires knowledge.
Assertion without supporting facts.
This knowledge is most likely in the form of a program similar to spellchecker.
Qualified assertion without supporting facts.
IOW it is in the software of life- DNA being part of the hardware.
This sentence I can't decipher.hrun0815_{March 15, 2010
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Blind molecules can't identify anything, let alone correct mistakes. To identify and correct mistakes requires knowledge. This knowledge is most likely in the form of a program similar to spellchecker. IOW it is in the software of life- DNA being part of the hardware.Joseph_{March 15, 2010
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