Researchers create simple genetic circuit that produces striped pattern in bacteria

Petrushka: "One of the obvious things that ID proponents need to demonstrate is that it is possible to design without copying existing things." ===== Somewhere Dr Gerald Joyce and Dr Craig Venter just fell off a chair. ----- Petrushka: "The ID argument is that evolution can’t produce “new” complex information. So far human designers haven’t demonstrated the ability to do this at all." ===== Again, you need to forward this revelation to Dr Gerald Joyce and Dr Craig Venter. Careful, this info could have the same reaction to egos, like taking a pin to a balloon. ----- Eocene

Petrushka, The ability to interpret a genetic change and relate it to function would be critical if one wished to explain any evolutionary change in terms of any evolutionary mechanisms. I've been saying this forever, and to deaf ears. This is the reason why evolutionary explanations are always so disconnected and vague. Evolution supposedly results from individual genetic changes, but no one ever explains evolutionary events in those terms. They back off the specifics and revert to apparent transitions in fossils. In short, it's one of the reasons why there's no way of knowing whether any evolutionary story is true, and by extension, whether the whole premise is even remotely accurate. But now you're ready to admit that collective ignorance if it will help you make an argument. Bravo! ScottAndrews

We seem able to copy genes from one organism to another, but have not demonstrated — even in principle — how to anticipate how coding strings will be interpreted. In fact, there is no way to anticipate how a new protein will fold, much less what it’s function would be.

So evolutionary biologists' lack of designing skills, means what? Joseph

Yes you are question-begging by A) assuming design excludes evolution and B) assuming living organisms are not designed. That said, the ID argument is NOT "that evolution can’t produce “new” complex information"- that is a strawman. ID says blind, undirected processes cannot take mere Shannon information and create complex specified information, ie csi from scratch. Joseph

I'm not sure what you mean. Living things are physical objects. Designing them would require knowledge of how a coding sequence would be interpreted and how that would affect the phenotype, and how that would play out in the ecosystem. We seem able to copy genes from one organism to another, but have not demonstrated -- even in principle -- how to anticipate how coding strings will be interpreted. In fact, there is no way to anticipate how a new protein will fold, much less what it's function would be. Anticipating function seems to be a problem on the order of exceeding the speed of light. Petrushka

Does the theorist in math or physics copy existing things when designing a theorem or simply observe them as evidence, and derive the hypothesis as a generality? News

Not question begging at all. One of the obvious things that ID proponents need to demonstrate is that it is possible to design without copying existing things. The ID argument is that evolution can't produce "new" complex information. So far human designers haven't demonstrated the ability to do this at all. The issue is being able to anticipate the effects of a new coding or regulatory sequence without producing random ones and employing selection. Petrushka

LoL! Nice question-begging- Joseph

You'd think that if design is superior to evolution, they could have done this without Xeroxing nature. Why copy something if you can design it? why copy if you can anticipate the effect of a genetic sequence from first principles? Petrushka