Science Deprived Whackaloon Creationist Writings From Down Under

_{February 9, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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The article I link to below was written by a creationist and published on a creationist website. The abysmal lack of knowledge about molecular biology is exposed in it. I present it for entertainment purposes only…

Astonishing DNA complexity demolishes neo-Darwinism

by Alex Williams
JOURNAL OF CREATION 21(3) 2007

Comments

But, what if the Big Bang Theory is wrong? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmologyblurt_{February 10, 2009
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We have had this discussion before. Extinction could be the result of normal Darwinian processes winnowing down the gene pool of a population till it finds an environment it cannot handle. Then it goes extinct. This does not mean that every population goes extinct but it could mean there is not enough variation in the gene pool of a particular population to handle the new variation. But extinction is not what Williams thesis is about. I am not sure what it is about other to say that the genome is incredibly more complex than anything we imagined and then he makes the non sequitur of introducing Sanford which has nothing to do with the complexity argument of the first part of his paper.jerry_{February 10, 2009
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re; evolution is smarter than you are Perhaps. Something is smarter than we are, that's for sure. A problem arises however in that organic evolution didn't fine tune the universe. Perhaps you're not aware but one of the biggest problems in physics is that if the entire universe contained more or less matter/energy than that in a single grain of sand (I kid you not) then it would have either collapsed before stars and planets could form or it would have inflated too fast for stars and planets to form. ID is one of a very short list of possibilities for how this could happen. That's one chance out of 10^60. There is no known law of physics or theory that demands any specific amount of matter/energy be present in the universe. Either we're here by design or we're beyond absurdly lucky.DaveScot_{February 10, 2009
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PaulN The average tenure of a species is about 10my. Most of them (99.9%) die out without spawning any new species. If this wasn't the case we'd have an estimated 5 billion different species alive today. The best explanation for this IMO is genetic entropy. The big question isn't why species go extinct. It's why a precious few live on.DaveScot_{February 10, 2009
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I'm with Domoman on this one. Every intelligently designed mechanism has its fail-safes. Heck, if it weren't for the implementation of the fail safe mechanisms in the first place, then we probably would have been degenerated to amorphous blobs by now. Do I believe the evidence supports a degenerating genome? Yes, accumulations of mutations tend to have negative effects, but not to the extent of disrepair, as we've seen with the radio-active fruit fly research. The populations normalized back to their original state after being subjected to grossly accelerated mutation rates.PaulN_{February 10, 2009
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"Very obviously the genome is very, very complex, and very obviously the genome is also degenerating. If an intelligence is intelligent enough to make the genome, I see no reason that it would also not be intelligent enough to make it damage resistant." Is this a rehash of the "bad design means no design" argument? Please read https://uncommondescent.com/faq/#nobdesn Again, Bible believing "Creationists", like Williams, have a logical answer, that perfectly fits the data, as much as many might dislike it because it's "non-scientific": The genome was created perfect, but decay and death were introduced after the Fall.fnds_{February 10, 2009
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#5:
DNA as the product of a mind far advanced from my own makes far more sense than DNA as the product of an extremely simple evolutionary algorithm that spontaneously came into being.
#6:
The average person reading about recent discoveries regarding DNA cannot help but realize that the way in which the DNA molecule processes information is orders of magnitude smarter than anything scientists could have dreamed up, had they been asked to design a self-replicating molecule. Something that our best scientific brains are unable to design and are struggling to even describe can only be described as a manifestation of some sort of Intelligence.
This is curious logic. My restatement: "This is way more complicated than anything I've ever seen that was the product of intelligence. Therefore, it must be the product of intelligence." Reminds me of something I've heard from Dennett, although he's quoting someone else I can't bring to mind now: "Evolution is smarter than you are."pubdef_{February 10, 2009
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BTW, by "complex" I'm using it broadly. I'm meaning more specifically a largely integrated and fine-tuned system.Domoman_{February 10, 2009
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You know it could be that the information in the genome is complex almost beyond reason, but not quite enough so that it could not withstand degeneration. Very obviously the genome is very, very complex, and very obviously the genome is also degenerating. If an intelligence is intelligent enough to make the genome, I see no reason that it would also not be intelligent enough to make it damage resistant.Domoman_{February 10, 2009
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eintown, Thank you for your input. I will just add this from Wikipedia "The C-value enigma or C-value paradox is a term used to describe the complex puzzle surrounding the extensive variation in nuclear genome size among eukaryotic species. At the center of the C-value enigma is the observation that genome size does not correlate with organismal complexity; for example, some single-celled protists have genomes much larger than that of humans." Thus, it is likely that humans have junk DNA, how much is the question? The whole scenario may still have a problem for neo darwinists because the processes Williams describes seem so complex and so far beyond the power of variation and selection. I assume they are accurate. However, he ruins his over all presentation by introducing Sanford's thesis at the end. It is a non sequitur. So as Dave said, Willaims is a whackaloon.jerry_{February 10, 2009
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eintown re; genome vs. phenome complexity read this: c-value enigma then this: front loading & c-value plants, by the way, are notorious for polyploidy which is the usual reason in them for lots of chromosomes interestingly many very large genomes in organisms that aren't otherwise complex occur in so-called living fossils - organisms that have survived unchanged far far longer than the average (10my) for any single species - if front loading is true these would be candidates for prototype organisms which carry in them the unexpressed information for a great many derivatives (built-in plasticity) - but front loading is a whole other topic which I've written much about so google it and read if interested and also check out the book "The Design Matrix" by Mike Gene who's a well known front loading proponent cells don't tend to waste resources and the fact of the matter is that almost all the non-coding DNA is transcribed into untranslated RNA - transcription itself is tightly regulated process that doesn't occur willy nilly - a bunch of junk RNA molecules floating around in the cytoplasm would gum things up pretty quickly and be vast waste of resources - just because it doesn't undergo mutation at the same rate as critical coding genes doesn't mean much - what if it's some sort of fluid memory? - liken highly conserved coding and non-coding DNA to genes to hardware and firmware in a computer and the more rapidly changing portions to ram - one thing more complex organisms have that don't appear to be contained in coding genes are instincts - yet every single egg cell has all the information in it to produce an organism with complex built-in behaviors characteristic of its species - as others here have stated the idea that a construct as complex as an adult human being can be completely & reliably specified from about a gigabyte (which is the information holding capacity of 3 gigabases) is almost absurd - if 90% of that is uneeded "junk" it then means a human adult can be completely and reliably specified in just 100 megabytes of information and that, to any engineer familiar with specifications for complex systems, is patently absurd DaveScot_{February 10, 2009
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Hey all... this is my first post :) I’d like to point out a few problems. This is just from the bits I’ve read. (1) Many plants have far more chromosomes and DNA than humans. If complexity was wholly dependent upon DNA levels, then plants such as Magnolia soulangiana, with 30 extra chromosomes then humans, should be more complex. But I think it’s fair to say that this is not the case. (2) “Finally, 95% of its functional information shows no sign of having been naturally selected; on the contrary, it is rapidly degenerating!” Williams then goes on to explain that no signs of selection pressure on this “junk” means natural selection is not “a significant contributor to our ancestry”. This is incorrect: (i)This 95% portion of our DNA is “mutating at the average rate” because it has no essential function. Parts of the genome that have highly important functions do not change much over millennia. If regions exhibit normal patterns of mutational change, then if those regions have a function it is either non-essential or flexible to change. (ii) Just because 95% of our genome is not undergoing positive selection, that doesn’t rule out the other 5% undergoing selection. And again we have the importance of a few thousand genes on our development etc. Any comments? Thanks for reading.eintown_{February 10, 2009
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I have the neo-darwinian solution!
Even if we granted that the first biological information came into existence by a random process in an ‘RNAworld’ scenario, the meta-information needed to use that information could not possibly come into existence by the same random (independent) process because metainformation is inextricably dependent upon the information that it relates to. page 5
I call it the "Reese's peanut-butter cup" solution: 1. We start with this "population" of molecules waiting to do something- those with the "first biological information". Just floating around not sure what to do. Just sure they have something to do. 2. This other population springs up via random collisions of atoms. This population has the meta-information- that is information that tells other molecules what to do, how to do it, when and where. They too are floating around not caring that no one is listening because everyone is busy talking. 3- A huge under-sea fault ruptures, forcing both populations onto a land mass via a tsunami. The same land mass. And left in the same small warm pond. 4- Thunderstorms roll over this land mass and badda-bing, badda-boom, we get the reese's peanut-butter cup solution- The talkers link up with the do-ers. The rest is history. Ya see we are all comforted by the fact that this happened.Joseph_{February 10, 2009
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"If the genome is so intertwined then any mutation should set it off for a miscarriage so that only pristine genomes can make it through" That it's fine tuned and robust seems very well supported by observation. If/when we produce something comparable then statements like yours proclaiming how it works might mean something. " The evoking of Sanford at the end is a sop to the YEC’s and undermines his credibility overall" Undermines his credibility with some, because of their beliefs. "Which ones did he color to suit his scenario" The idea that 'scientist' don't have a 'scenario' is amusing in a way. Everyone is looking at the same thing and they all interpret it through their own color. Every actual observation of biology is consistent with a decline. If that happens to be consistent with YEC, so what?butifnot_{February 10, 2009
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So where are all the darwinians playing down this article? I was hoping for some constructive rebuttals.ellijacket_{February 10, 2009
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I wish I had a citation for every memory of stuff I've read. I remember reading some general darwinan conclusions that of course 98% of DNA is junk because 2% is the most information that natural selection could realistically juggle. (I think they overestimate the powers of natural selection.) Alas a majority of DNA is meaningfully informative. Much of DNA being multiply informative (there's about 100,000 protein types but only 20,000 protein coding genes). At some point the darwinists need to cry "uncle." Maybe these guys won't cry uncle 'til their arm is fully twisted off.bFast_{February 10, 2009
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The whackaloon comes at the end where he swallows the "we are doomed" scenario of Sanford. Williams made an argument for design of the genome, amazing design involving all the elements of the genome. And then trashes that argument by invoking Sanford and trashing natural selection. If the genome is so intertwined then any mutation should set it off for a miscarriage so that only pristine genomes can make it through. If a few mutations do not upset the incredible machinery, then fine, they will make it through but not too many. But too many mutations undermines his thesis that the whole genome is fine tuned to do amazing things. The evoking of Sanford at the end is a sop to the YEC's and undermines his credibility overall. I am now suspect of the rest of the discussion. Which ones did he color to suit his scenario. Maybe not too many since he led us to what seems like an obvious contradiction at the end. Dave, thank you for pointing out the whackaloon.jerry_{February 10, 2009
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To GilDodgen "It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to figure out that shooting bullets into a computer can’t make it work better, no matter how much time is allowed, yet that is what the Darwinists ask us to believe." I can follow most of the stuff here but I have no idea what this means can you explain it\point me to an explanation somewhere? Thank you.GSV_{February 10, 2009
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I had a Eureka moment when reading about the cake-toy analogy. Of course the meta-information in the UTR's is much more abundant than the small amount of information in the transcribed portion. It takes much more coding to communicate how to put the proteins together and what order to manufacture them, than to decide which protein to make. To celebrate the ignorance that thought all the UTR's were just "junk", I suggest that UD put together the "Neo-Darwinian Cookbook". Each recipe would only list the "important" ingredient list. It would get rid of all of the "junk" that explained HOW to actually cook the recipe. I am sure this much more efficiently encoded cookbook which only contained the important ingredients list would be naturally selected.JDH_{February 10, 2009
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"Anyone have a link to a naturalist trying to spin these discoveries? I am very, very curious as to what their response could possibly be." They will say it was selected for.jerry_{February 10, 2009
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One code the author "missed" is the membrane code- the so-called membranome. That is there is information in the cell membrane as well as all organelle membranes. This information is used to reconstruct all membranes during replication. Otherwise everything would be halved into non-existence. The membranome was first "discovered" when scientists cut a piece of the cortex of a Paramecium, inverted it 180, and re-inserted it. When that organism replicated the daughter cells also had the inversion.Joseph_{February 10, 2009
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Yup, Dave got me too!!! It is obvious from this article that Creationists don't know nuthin' 'bout biology. :) (I guess that makes them as smart as evolutionists) ;)Joseph_{February 10, 2009
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"This means that everyone is a mutant many times over" The next time someone says that I'm unique, I won't take it as a compliment. Great article! My favourite part was: "All of these cells contain the same DNA, so how does each cell know how to become a nerve cell rather than a blood cell? The required information is written in code down the side of the DNA double-helix in the form of different molecules attached to the nucleotides that form the ‘rungs’ in the ‘ladder’ of the helix." Sounds a lot like bookmarks.critiacrof_{February 10, 2009
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I was about to shoot fire and brimbstone at Dave, but then I read the coments. Phew. I can relate to van's initial comment, specially spending so much time reading the nonsence that comes from Little Green Footballs when it comes to evolutionMats_{February 10, 2009
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I am very, very curious as to what their response could possibly be. Unless it is that these claims about how “Junk” DNA actually works are false, I can’t imagine it They just dismiss it all as "leaky transcription".WeaselSpotting_{February 9, 2009
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If what is said in that article about DNA is true...I cannot begin to fathom the "well it could have happened this way" stories from devout Darwinists. The more we learn about how biological systems actually work, the less sense Darwin makes. I don't blame him...his theory may have made a lot of sense before the fossil record began approach its final state, before the discovery of the incredible complexity within a cell, before the discovery of DNA, and perhaps most importantly, before the discovery of how DNA truly works Anyone have a link to a naturalist trying to spin these discoveries? I am very, very curious as to what their response could possibly be. Unless it is that these claims about how "Junk" DNA actually works are false, I can't imagine ituoflcard_{February 9, 2009
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Williams cuts an impressive figure, actually. Botany, theology, information theory, not to mention previous work debunking various materialistic cosmological notions. Dismissing the YEC folks out of hand is all too simple. IMO, they've done a great job raising questions about various dating techniques, and it's nice to see UD picking up on that (as in the Triassic Shore Birds post).WeaselSpotting_{February 9, 2009
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In line with this article, recall Barry Commoner's piece ("Unraveling the DNA Myth: The Spurious Foundation of Genetic Engineering") from back in 2002: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0209-01.htmWilliam Dembski_{February 9, 2009
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What? Is there some science in that article buried in all the religious mumbo jumbo that I somehow missed? ;)DaveScot_{February 9, 2009
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lol, nice one Dave. I skimmed most of it trying in vain to find the "abysmal lack of knowledge" and began wondering what you were talking about. Then I read post #4 and it all became clear to me. :Dtragicmishap_{February 9, 2009
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