Properly Darwinian genes would have done what Ohno told them a long time ago but not these ones:
For the half past century or more, most biologists agreed with the conclusions of the geneticist Susumu Ohno in his influential 1970 book Evolution by Gene Duplication. While acknowledging that the first genes had to come from somewhere, he wrote: “Yet, in a strict sense, nothing in evolution is created de novo. Each new gene must have arisen from an existing gene…”
This explanation seemed sound because truly de novo genes would have to emerge through evolution acting on the abundant “nongenic” DNA (often dismissed as junk) between genes. It was hard to imagine how that could happen. Cells’ fitness generally depends on the smooth functioning of networks of genes that have coevolved to work together over millions of years. Genes derived from other genes have a better chance of blending into those networks. In comparison, the fairly random transcripts from nascent de novo genes seem as though they should be, at best, inconsequential —-and more likely harmful to cells’ prospects. “The received wisdom is that random sequences are more likely to mess things up than to make them better,” said Aoife McLysaght, a geneticist at Trinity College Dublin.
But in the past 15 years, evidence for de novo genes has steadily accumulated, so much so that the debate has shifted from whether de novo genes exist to how much they contribute to evolution and adaptation.
Vivian Callier, “ Where Do New Genes Come From?” at Quanta
Hey, wasn’t this the alternative reading at Mass for, you know, Genesis 1, where God speaks and all kinds of life forms pop out of nothing? Hmmm. Give it time.
Monday: De novo genes are extremely rare, if not impossible, and not observed, therefore ID.
Tuesday: De novo genes are fairly common, therefore ID.
Denyse,
Good article.
They ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
🙂
The data and digital language of DNA would be considered ID
It’s still really close to impossible and still has not been observed, a single gene coming out of a single drop of soup anywhere in the world on its own. Keywords, on its own
It is an event that is so rare but so powerful, that once it happens it can cover the entire planet in life
Yet it doesn’t seem to happen again and it takes teams of scientists that are incredibly intelligent with near endless amounts of money to still fail to produce this effect, Because it is absolutely true that the parameters, to try to get this to work, are so tight, that it really only seems to happen once
I actually quite a bit disagree with this article
And I agree with you ED George I noticed that too, thats why I mentioned what I did on the Neanderthal thread, I’ve seen arguments for both I want a definitive position on that
But I have also seen exactly the same arguments on the other side from evolutionists
Currently I am wrestling with genetic determinism and twin studies, and those that promote it
And I’ve noticed they to like to produce the heads I win tails you lose effect
All reasons for similarity are genetic all reasons for differences are also genetic
Therefore nothing is not genetic I win
The same goes for genetics with junk DNA
The “we have to have 98% of our DNA to be junk”
To
“Of course there is vital function, it’s exactly what you would expect from evolution”
But I am noticing this a lot from both sides of the coin an ability to describe it in favor of one perspective regardless of the data
But if I have to take a side, it’s ID
And the thing that pushed me so far away from evolution (I believe it’s part of the grand system, intentional, not blind, not the greatest show on earth) Was the comment of having to convince yourself that what looks like to be design in nature is not
That right there is often the comments of an abuser that requires you to rid yourself of your common sense.
There’s is a phrase incorrectly attributed to “El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de La Mancha” but that apparently isn’t in Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s classic book.
Nevertheless that phrase pops up to my mind when I see some comments here.
🙂
Ed George states,
Funny, Ed George is dishonestly trying to accuse ID of, basically, being unfalsifiable since it supposedly changed its prediction concerning ORFan genes in mid-stream to accord with the empirical evidence. Yet being unfalsifiable is the bread and butter of Darwinian evolution, not ID.
Shoot, the entire article referenced in the OP from Quanta is itself an exercise in Darwinists changing their predictions to accord with the new findings of the empirical evidence.
Moreover, what ID actually predicts, from the empirical evidence itself, is not the absence or prevalence of new ORFan genes/proteins within any given species, but is that it is impossible for Darwinian processes to produce a single new gene and/or protein in the first place, PERIOD, full stop!
And that prediction has not been violated one iota. Not one new gene and/or protein has ever been observed to arise from Darwinian processes. As Tawfik and Tóth-Petróczy wrote, “no macromutations … that gave birth to novel proteins have yet been identified.”
The odds against Darwinian processes producing a new gene and/or protein are simply staggering,
Perhaps Ed George would like to be the first Darwinist to ever empirically demonstrate that unguided Darwinian processes can create a new gene and/or protein? And to thus establish Darwinian evolution as a proper and testable science instead of basically being a unfalsifiable religion for atheists?
Moreover, even if we granted Ed George and other atheistic Darwinists the existence of a gene and/or protein, Darwinists would still have no evidence that it is possible to change that existing protein, that performed some specific function, into a ‘slightly’ new protein that performs a new function,
Ann Gauger and Doug Axe have found that Darwinian processes would need a trillion trillion years or more—to accomplish the seemingly subtle change in enzyme function that requires just a few mutations.
Along that same line of evidence, Michael Behe, in his book ‘The Edge of Evolution’, noted that the ability of the malaria parasite to develop resistance to chloroquine is a two mutation event with a probability of occurring of 1 in 10^20. He then notes that ‘for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years’ (or 1 quadrillion years)
Michael Behe then put what he has dubbed ‘the edge of evolution’ to be at 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. ,,, Behe puts the edge of evolution at 10^40 since, as he states, ‘there have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years,’.
Darwinist simply have no evidence that it is possible for Darwinian processes to create new genes and/or proteins, nor do they have any evidence that it is possible to gradually change existing proteins into new proteins,
One final note, it is a shame that Ed George has to rely on deceptive accusations against ID supposedly making false predictions in order to try to prop up Darwinian evolution and to try to discredit ID.
And moreover, this, i.e. dishonesty, is a repeated pattern on the part of Darwinists in general. I would like to think that Ed George and other Darwinists would find such dishonesty, especially in science, to be morally reprehensible. Thus the question arises as to what drives them to such morally reprehensible dishonesty?
My guess is that, like Thomas Nagel was, Ed George and other Darwinian atheists are primarily driven by a fear of God instead of a love for truth?
Of note:
The issue has always been whether there is a natural mechanism that produces major changes in life forms or not. Darwin’s ideas and the modern synthesis were an attempt at providing a mechanism. They obviously fail.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t other natural mechanisms. Stephen Gould observed sudden changes and proposed punctuated equilibrium and Juergen Brosius proposes how this happens with junk DNA as it mutates over long periods of time to form a new DNA sequence that produces a useful protein. He claims they have examples.
My guess is that there are a couple trivial examples but they fail to be more than trivial. There are research techniques that would validate or disprove this theory but I haven’t seen them applied in any studies. They just assume it happened this way. Its a natural process but definitely not Darwinian.
Everyone focuses on Darwin but he would be abandoned in a second if another theory proved viable. So undercutting Darwin does not make ID a done deal. The value of Darwin is that his ideas are readily understandable to the average person and thus plausible. They are meant to get the average person nodding their head. They are then afraid of questioning it else they appear stupid and found believing in superstition.
I have been there trying to have a polite conversation with well meaning, educated and polite friends. Debunking Darwin is beyond their pay grade and you end up appearing as an anti science kook to them. The first accusation thrown at someone doing this is that you are a creationist who believes in looney tunes ideas. The last thing one wants to be thought of is as anti science.
@3 AaronS1978
Regarding the ‘genetic determinism’ thing:
If:
– we are solely our genes
– then ‘logical processes’ are also determined via genes
Meaning: that logic is not immutable, therefore if the underlying genes change, so does the logic.
Meaning that logical inferences are not universally valid.
Meaning your ‘reasoning’ is not valid.
Meaning ‘genetic determinism’ is not valid (self-referential absurdity).
Meaning: there is more to humans than our genes.
Please someone correct me if I am wrong.
We should change the focus of the debate by asking the following question:
“Did the evolution of life over the past billion years require an intelligent agent or not?”
This clearly distinguishes ID from any potential naturalistic mechanism or mix of supposed mechanisms. To answer the question and to show that ID is in fact falsifiable, I will rework Darwin’s own falsifiability statement as follows:
“If it could be demonstrated that many complex organs existed, which could credibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, then ID theory would absolutely break down.”
This approach puts the onus on the other side. Rather than hiding behind possible future theories and vague natural mechanisms, Darwinists should attempt to falsify ID through credible, scientific methods. ID has spent a lot of time demonstrating the limitations and impossibilities of full-up Darwinism (in whatever form), without seeing Darwinists budge an inch. It is time to turn the tables and demand they try to credibly falsify ID – emphasis on the word “credibly”.
To demonstrate a true de novo gene, the researchers would have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the DNA segment in question, and similar DNA segments (a few base pairs away perhaps) were never functional in any living thing ever. Because it would be much easier for a supposedly de nove gene to get there by horizontal gene transfer (for example) than to actually pop up de novo. Or for it to have been functional at one time, go dormant, and return to functioning status, as another possibility. Hope these optimistic researchers don’t jump the gun and conclude too much…not holding my breath tho.
ID is the only thing that explains the existence of mathematics, the laws of physics, genesis effect and various species on Earth both past and present.