The latest in functional “junk DNA”

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September 1, 2016

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primary (r) and backup (g) sites for centromere assembly/Elizabeth Sullivan, Duke U

Although variants are scattered throughout the genome, scientists have largely ignored the stretches of repetitive genetic code once dismissively known as “junk” DNA in their search for differences that influence human health and disease.

A new study shows that variation in these overlooked repetitive regions may also affect human health. These regions can affect the stability of the genome and the proper function of the chromosomes that package genetic material, leading to an increased risk of cancer, birth defects and infertility. The results appear online in the journal Genome Research.

…

“What we found in this study is probably the tip of the iceberg,” Sullivan said. “There could be all sorts of functional consequences to having variation within the complex, repetitive portion of the genome that we don’t know about yet.”Although genetic variants are scattered throughout the human genome, scientists have largely ignored the stretches of repetitive genetic code known as ‘junk’ DNA in their search for differences that influence human health and disease. Now, researchers have discovered that variation in these overlooked regions can affect the stability of the genome and the proper function of the chromosomes that package our genetic material, leading to an increased risk of birth defects, infertility, and cancer. More. Paper. (paywall) – Megan E Aldrup-MacDonald, Molly E Kuo, Lori L Sullivan, Kimberline Chew, Beth A Sullivan. Genomic variation within alpha satellite DNA influences centromere location on human chromosomes with metastable epialleles. Genome Research, 2016; gr.206706.116 DOI: 10.1101/gr.206706.116

Keep on the trail, folks. All signs suggest you are on to something.

See also: New York Times science writer defends the myth of junk DNA

Is “dark genome” becoming the new name for junk DNA?

“Researchers say junk DNA plays key role in brain development” and “Non-coding RNAs undermining the junk DNA concept?”

Old concepts die hard, especially when they are value-laden as “junk DNA” has been—it has been a key argument for Darwinism. So even though “dark genome” makes more sense given all the functions now being identified, expect “junk DNA” to be defended in practice.

For an odd example of that, see “Nothing makes sense in evolution except in the light of junk DNA?”: “If ENCODE [a project that identifies functions] is right, then Evolution is wrong.”

And more recently, Furore over no junk DNA?

For background, see Jonathan Wells on the junk DNA myth

Pod: Richard Sternberg on “junk DNA”

More later. Meanwhile, why did Darwin’s faithful box themselves into this corner anyway? It would have been possible to construct a naturalistic theory of life in which there was no junk DNA. Readers?

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Comments

J-Mac, 'where is someone who is just learning to turn?' J-Mac, what ever you do don't turn to science journals if you are 'just learning'. My advice would be to get an undergraduate degree, proceed to Masters, and then perhaps science journals will be intelligable to you; they are certainly routinely, and regularly abused here. You could read popular science writers like Shubin and Coyne. These people explain 'junk' very well, and convincingly. The style of News, to take a poorly worded release, sensastionalise it for her very small audience, and then wait for lackeys to pile in, is a poor way to understand science. I myself visit several popular science sites and understand the term 'junk' very well; a poor, and past its use by date term, but still useful to describ non-coding sites. You could of course wait for BA to explain things, but then we have a different problem known by me as, 'exponential confusion' or 'ex-con'.rvb8_{September 4, 2016
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Sorry J-Mac, I can't see how this comment is related to the article or my comment at all?wd400_{September 3, 2016
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Scientists don’t write press releases, university press offices do. The story that scientists once “thought all non protein-coding DNA was junk and now we know that’s wrong” is journalstic cliche that press officers like, because it makes their researchers looking cutting edge (there goal, after all, is to advertise their university). That the cliche is not actually true doesn’t really make much difference to them. Well, wd400 if science circle of care can't get their act straight, where should someone who is just learning turn? The so called science gurus can't even agree on fundamental issues, such as the mechanism of evolution. What would happen if I asked them to provide one piece of scientific evidence that convinced them to believe that life originated on its own? How many pieces of evidence would I get? How many do you have? I'm willing to place some money on your venture and the big-guys response. But, you will not bet...And you very well know why... you will lose ...pa...pa..J-Mac_{September 3, 2016
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J-Mac, Scientists don't write press releases, university press offices do. The story that scientists once "thought all non protein-coding DNA was junk and now we know that's wrong" is journalstic cliche that press officers like, because it makes their researchers looking cutting edge (there goal, after all, is to advertise their university). That the cliche is not actually true doesn't really make much difference to them.wd400_{September 2, 2016
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I used to follow Moran's blog. I finally gave up because there was never any solid arguments for evolution, just faith and name calling. In the time I followed him there was only really one justification given - it was the horrible treatment of women and gays in the Bible, that's the sole foundation for evolution. Just as Dr Hunter has been saying all along, evolution is based solely on theology.Peter_{September 2, 2016
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Larry wrote: "The press release is garbage. Only a fool (or an IDiot) would believe such a stupid university press release. Only a fool wouldn’t bother to read the paper." Larry, are you suggesting that the press release was written by ID proponents? If not, just give a sound reason as to why the "other side of the issue scientists" would publish that piece. Are they anti-evolution for some reason?J-Mac_{September 2, 2016
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Moreover, as Nancy Pearcey alluded to in her ‘Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself’ article, given the materialistic/atheistic premises of Darwinian evolution, not only are our observations of reality itself held to be illusory, but even our sense of self, i.e. the belief that we really exist as real persons, which is the most sure thing we can know about reality, becomes illusory too. Thus, in what I consider to be a shining example of poetic justice, in their claim that God does not really exist as a real person but is merely an illusion, the naturalist also ends up claiming that he himself does not really exist as a real person but is merely an illusion. Here are a few quotes to that effect,,,
“that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick – “The Astonishing Hypothesis” 1994 “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor The Confidence of Jerry Coyne – Ross Douthat – January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession (by Coyne) that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. Per NY Times Atheistic Materialism – Does Richard Dawkins Exist? – video 37:51 minute mark Quote: “You can spout a philosophy that says scientific materialism, but there aren’t any scientific materialists to pronounce it.,,, That’s why I think they find it kind of embarrassing to talk that way. Nobody wants to stand up there and say, “You know, I’m not really here”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCnzq2yTCg&t=37m51s At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: “consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion… what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s
Thus, given materialistic premises of Darwinian evolution, people become illusions whose observations of reality are illusory. And why in blue blazes should anyone trust what illusions having illusions have to say about reality? And although Feynman said we must not fool ourselves in science, and also said that we are the easiest ones to fool in science, apparently Darwinists have fooled themselves, with their 'science', into thinking that they do not even exist as persons! Now that, folks, is what I call one astonishing piece of fooling yourself! :) Moreover, as Nancy Pearcey alluded to in her article, free will itself also becomes illusory. Thus, under atheistic naturalism there is not really a real person with the free will to choose to believe in, or to not believe in anything, be it believing in God or be it believing in naturalism. There are only illusions of persons who are fed illusions of free will. Illusions of free will that somehow miraculously coincide with the illusory intentions of their illusory self. Moreover, the denial of the reality of free will by materialists undermines rationality itself and thus also undermines science itself
Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html (1) rationality implies a thinker in control of thoughts. (2) under materialism a thinker is an effect caused by processes in the brain (determinism). (3) in order for materialism to ground rationality a thinker (an effect) must control processes in the brain (a cause). (1)&(2) (4) no effect can control its cause. Therefore materialism cannot ground rationality. per Box UD Physicalism and Reason - May 2013 Summary: So we find ourselves affirming two contradictory propositions: 1. Everything is governed by cause-and-effect. 2. Our brains can process and be changed by ground-consequent logical relationships. To achieve consistency, we must either deny that everything is governed by cause-and-effect, and open our worldviews to something beyond physicalism, or we must deny that our brains are influenced by ground-consequence reasoning, and abandon the idea that we are rational creatures. Ask yourself: are humans like falling dominoes, entirely subject to natural law, or may we stand up and walk in the direction that reason shows us? http://www.reasonsforgod.org/2012/09/physicalism-and-reason/
Thus, basically, without God, everything within the atheistic/naturalistic worldview, (i.e. sense of self. observation of reality, free will, even reality itself), collapses into self refuting, unrestrained, flights of fantasies and imagination. Because of such catastrophic epistemological failure inherent within Darwinian Evolution and Atheistic materialism, it would be hard to find a more unscientific worldview than Darwinian evolution and Atheistic materialism turn out to be. Verses, Videos and Music:
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; 2 Peter 1:16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Quantum Hologram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TL4QOCiis The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from Death as the “Theory of Everything” – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uHST2uFPQY&list=PLtAP1KN7ahia8hmDlCYEKifQ8n65oNpQ5&index=4 Hillsong United – Taya Smith – Touch The Sky – Acoustic Cover – Live – HD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyl34fHQi3U
bornagain77_{September 2, 2016
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Thus, since atheists themselves are self admittedly seeing the ‘illusion of design’ in life, and yet they, including Moran himself, self admittedly have no experimental evidence whatsoever that unguided material processes, and natural selection in particular, can produce this ‘illusion of design’ , then of course the ID advocate would be well justified in saying that this ‘illusion of design’ that they are seeing in life not an illusion after all but the design they see is indeed real and that these atheists are not really suffering from some sort of a mental illness after all. In fact, I hold that Darwinists are ‘naturally detecting design’ because of the inherent ‘image of God’ that they have within themselves, but that they are living in denial of that ‘design intuition’. i.e. they are 'fooling themselves'
Children are born believers in God, academic claims - 24 Nov 2008 Excerpt: "Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/3512686/Children-are-born-believers-in-God-academic-claims.html Design Thinking Is Hardwired in the Human Brain. How Come? - October 17, 2012 Excerpt: "Even Professional Scientists Are Compelled to See Purpose in Nature, Psychologists Find." The article describes a test by Boston University's psychology department, in which researchers found that "despite years of scientific training, even professional chemists, geologists, and physicists from major universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Yale cannot escape a deep-seated belief that natural phenomena exist for a purpose" ,,, Most interesting, though, are the questions begged by this research. One is whether it is even possible to purge teleology from explanation. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/design_thinking065381.html
Moreover, this illusory nature inherent to the supposed evidence for Darwinian evolution gets worse for the atheist. Much worse! For instance, although reliable ‘observation’ of reality is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method itself,,,
Steps of the Scientific Method Observation/Research Hypothesis Prediction Experimentation Conclusion http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/scientific_method.html
,,, Although reliable ‘observation’ of reality is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method, the reductive materialistic foundation that Darwinian evolution rests upon undermines this cornerstone. That is to say, Given materialistic/atheistic premises, not only are our personal beliefs about reality held to be somewhat flawed, but even our perceptions/observations of reality itself are held to be untrustworthy and thus ‘illusory’ given the materialistic premises of atheism. Richard Dawkins puts the awkward situation between Darwinian evolution and reliable observation like this:
Why Atheism is Nonsense Pt.5 – “Naturalism is a Self-defeating Idea”video Excerpt: “Since we are creatures of natural selection, we cannot totally trust our senses. Evolution only passes on traits that help a species survive, and not concerned with preserving traits that tell a species what is actually true about life.” Richard Dawkins – quoted from “The God Delusion” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff-5rsrDRGM
In the following video and article, Donald Hoffman has, through numerous computer simulations of population genetics, proved that if Darwinian evolution were actually true then all of our perceptions of reality would be illusory.
Donald Hoffman: Do we see reality as it is? – Video – 9:59 minute mark Quote: “,,,evolution is a mathematically precise theory. We can use the equations of evolution to check this out. We can have various organisms in artificial worlds compete and see which survive and which thrive, which sensory systems or more fit. A key notion in those equations is fitness.,,, fitness does depend on reality as it is, yes.,,, Fitness is not the same thing as reality as it is, and it is fitness, and not reality as it is, that figures centrally in the equations of evolution. So, in my lab, we have run hundreds of thousands of evolutionary game simulations with lots of different randomly chosen worlds and organisms that compete for resources in those worlds. Some of the organisms see all of the reality. Others see just part of the reality. And some see none of the reality. Only fitness. Who wins? Well I hate to break it to you but perception of reality goes extinct. In almost every simulation, organisms that see none of reality, but are just tuned to fitness, drive to extinction that perceive reality as it is. So the bottom line is, evolution does not favor veridical, or accurate perceptions. Those (accurate) perceptions of reality go extinct. Now this is a bit stunning. How can it be that not seeing the world accurately gives us a survival advantage?” https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY?t=601 The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality - April 2016 The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions. Excerpt: “The classic argument is that those of our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately and thus were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for those more accurate perceptions, so after thousands of generations we can be quite confident that we’re the offspring of those who saw accurately, and so we see accurately. That sounds very plausible. But I think it is utterly false. It misunderstands the fundamental fact about evolution, which is that it’s about fitness functions — mathematical functions that describe how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction. The mathematical physicist Chetan Prakash proved a theorem that I devised that says: According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality/ also see Plantinga’s ‘evolutionary argument against naturalism’ which preceded Hoffmans’s ‘evolutionary argument against reality’
Thus, in what should be needless to say, a worldview that undermines the scientific method itself by holding all our observations of reality are illusory is NOT a worldview that can be firmly grounded within the scientific method!
Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself – Nancy Pearcey – March 8, 2015 Excerpt: Steven Pinker writes, “Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.” The upshot is that survival is no guarantee of truth. If survival is the only standard, we can never know which ideas are true and which are adaptive but false. To make the dilemma even more puzzling, evolutionists tell us that natural selection has produced all sorts of false concepts in the human mind. Many evolutionary materialists maintain that free will is an illusion, consciousness is an illusion, even our sense of self is an illusion — and that all these false ideas were selected for their survival value. So how can we know whether the theory of evolution itself is one of those false ideas? The theory undercuts itself.,,, Of course, the atheist pursuing his research has no choice but to rely on rationality, just as everyone else does. The point is that he has no philosophical basis for doing so. Only those who affirm a rational Creator have a basis for trusting human rationality. The reason so few atheists and materialists seem to recognize the problem is that, like Darwin, they apply their skepticism selectively. They apply it to undercut only ideas they reject, especially ideas about God. They make a tacit exception for their own worldview commitments. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/why_evolutionar094171.html
Moreover, completely contrary to materialistic premises, conscious observation, far from being unreliable and illusory, is experimentally found to be far more integral to reality, i.e. far more reliable of reality, than the math of population genetics predicted. In the following experiment, it was found that reality doesn’t exist without an observer.
New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It – June 3, 2015 Excerpt: The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html
Apparently science itself could care less if atheists are forced to believe, because of the math of population genetics, that their observations of reality are illusory!bornagain77_{September 2, 2016
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Moran claims that people who believe what the press release is quoting Sullivan as saying are fools or IDiots. In fact, Moran constantly refers to anyone who believes that life could possibly be designed as an "IDiot" Fool is defined as such
fool noun: fool; plural noun: fools 1. a person who acts unwisely or imprudently; a silly person. verb verb: fool; 3rd person present: fools; past tense: fooled; past participle: fooled; gerund or present participle: fooling 1. trick or deceive (someone); dupe. "he fooled nightclub managers into believing he was a successful businessman" synonyms: deceive, trick, hoax, dupe, take in, mislead, delude, hoodwink, sucker, bluff, gull;
And an idiot is defined as such
An idiot, dolt, dullard or (archaically) mome is a person perceived to be lacking intelligence, or someone who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way. Per wikipedia
Not to be overly rude or anything like that, as Dr Moran is when he often calls people by those terms, but does not the term fool and/or idiot apply much more aptly to Atheistic Evolutionists/Darwinists themselves? Especially in regards for how the word 'fool' is defined in its verb tense as to being 'deceived'?
trick or deceive (someone); dupe. (i.e. an April Fool)
Especially in regards to Evolutionists 'fooling themselves' in science? Feynman puts that 'fooling ourselves' tendency in science succinctly as such:
“But this long history of learning how to not fool ourselves – of having utter scientific integrity – is, I’m sorry to say, something that we haven’t specifically included in any particular course that I know of. We just hope you’ve caught on by osmosis. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that. I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist … I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.” Richard Feynman – commencement address at Caltech in 1974:
The reason I say that fool, as in being 'foolishly deceived', is much more aptly applied to Atheistic Materialists/Darwinists is because atheists themselves admit that life overwhelmingly appears to be designed.
“Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning.” Richard Dawkins – “The Blind Watchmaker” – 1986 – page 21 quoted from this video – Michael Behe – Life Reeks Of Design – 2010 – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdh-YcNYThY
Richards Dawkins is far from the only prominent atheist who seems to be afflicted with the mental illness of seeing the ‘illusion of design’ pervasively throughout life. The well known atheist Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, seems to also have been particularly haunted by this illusion of seeing design everywhere he looked in molecular biology:
“Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.” Francis Crick – What Mad Pursuit - p. 138 (1990) “Organisms appear as if they had been designed to perform in an astonishingly efficient way, and the human mind therefore finds it hard to accept that there need be no Designer to achieve this” Francis Crick – What Mad Pursuit – p. 30
Yet, despite the fact that, according to many leading atheists themselves, life gives the overwhelming ‘appearance’ of having been designed for a purpose, all the purported scientific evidence, that is suppose to demonstrate for us "IDiots" how this overwhelming appearance of design in life came to be by purely unguided material processes, turns out, itself, to be ‘illusory’. Franklin M. Harold, whom I believe is also an atheist, calls Darwinian accounts ‘a variety of wishful speculations’. Specifically he states:
“,,,we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.” Franklin M. Harold,* 2001. The way of the cell: molecules, organisms and the order of life, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 205. *Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, Colorado State University, USA
James Shapiro, main founder of the anti neo-Darwinian group "The Third Way", makes an almost verbatim statement prior to Harold's statement:
“The argument that random variation and Darwinian gradualism may not be adequate to explain complex biological systems is hardly new […} in fact, there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject — evolution — with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses works in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity.” Prof. James Shapiro – “In the Details…What?” National Review, 19 September 1996, pp. 64.
In fact, one of the main themes of many of Michael Behe’s talks is that all ‘grand Darwinian claims rest on undisciplined imagination’:
“Grand Darwinian claims rest on undisciplined imagination” Dr. Michael Behe – 29:24 mark of this following video Evidence of Design from Biology. A Presentation by Dr. Michael Behe - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s6XAXjiyRfM#t=1762s “Some evolutionary biologists--like Richard Dawkins--have fertile imaginations. Given a starting point, they almost always can spin a story to get to any biological structure you wish” (Michael Behe - Darwin’s Black Box)
Moreover, natural selection was/is suppose to be the 'designer substitute' that is supposedly fooling all of us into thinking life is designed:
"It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good;" Charles Darwin - Origin of Species - second British edition - pg.84
Yet, despite the fact that natural selection was/is, according to Darwin's theory, suppose to be the 'designer substitute' that supposedly producing this overwhelming appearance of design in life that is fooling IDiots into thinking life is designed, it is now known that natural selection is grossly inadequate as that supposed 'designer substitute'. The easiest way to see that Natural Selection is grossly inadequate as a designer substitute is by the 'princess and the pea' paradox (John Sanford), and also by the 4-Dimensional quarter power scaling that is found pervasively throughout life:
The abject failure of Natural Selection on two levels of physical reality – video (2016) https://youtu.be/ISu-09yq2Gc
Moreover, the math of population genetics also shows that natural selection cannot be a major player in evolution.
Haldane's Dilemma Excerpt: Haldane, (in a seminal paper in 1957—the ‘cost of substitution’), was the first to recognize there was a cost to selection which limited what it realistically could be expected to do. He did not fully realize that his thinking would create major problems for evolutionary theory. He calculated that in man it would take 6 million years to fix just 1,000 mutations (assuming 20 years per generation).,,, Man and chimp differ by at least 150 million nucleotides representing at least 40 million hypothetical mutations (Britten, 2002). So if man evolved from a chimp-like creature, then during that process there were at least 20 million mutations fixed within the human lineage (40 million divided by 2), yet natural selection could only have selected for 1,000 of those. All the rest would have had to been fixed by random drift - creating millions of nearly-neutral deleterious mutations. This would not just have made us inferior to our chimp-like ancestors - it surely would have killed us. Since Haldane's dilemma there have been a number of efforts to sweep the problem under the rug, but the problem is still exactly the same. ReMine (1993, 2005) has extensively reviewed the problem, and has analyzed it using an entirely different mathematical formulation - but has obtained identical results. John Sanford PhD. - "Genetic Entropy and The Mystery of the Genome" - pg. 159-160 Kimura's Quandary Excerpt: Kimura realized that Haldane was correct,,, He developed his neutral theory in response to this overwhelming evolutionary problem. Paradoxically, his theory led him to believe that most mutations are unselectable, and therefore,,, most 'evolution' must be independent of selection! Because he was totally committed to the primary axiom (neo-Darwinism), Kimura apparently never considered his cost arguments could most rationally be used to argue against the Axiom's (neo-Darwinism's) very validity. John Sanford PhD. - "Genetic Entropy and The Mystery of the Genome" - pg. 161 - 162 The waiting time problem in a model hominin population - 2015 Sep 17 John Sanford, Wesley Brewer, Franzine Smith, and John Baumgardner Excerpt: The program Mendel’s Accountant realistically simulates the mutation/selection process,,, Given optimal settings, what is the longest nucleotide string that can arise within a reasonable waiting time within a hominin population of 10,000? Arguably, the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic (Table 2). Waiting a minimum of 1.5 million years (realistically, much longer), for a single point mutation is not timely adaptation in the face of any type of pressing evolutionary challenge. This is especially problematic when we consider that it is estimated that it only took six million years for the chimp and human genomes to diverge by over 5 % [1]. This represents at least 75 million nucleotide changes in the human lineage, many of which must encode new information. While fixing one point mutation is problematic, our simulations show that the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years (Table 2). This is ten-fold longer than the estimated time required for ape-to-man evolution. In this light, we suggest that a string of two specific mutations is a reasonable upper limit, in terms of the longest string length that is likely to evolve within a hominin population (at least in a way that is either timely or meaningful). Certainly the creation and fixation of a string of three (requiring at least 380 million years) would be extremely untimely (and trivial in effect), in terms of the evolution of modern man. It is widely thought that a larger population size can eliminate the waiting time problem. If that were true, then the waiting time problem would only be meaningful within small populations. While our simulations show that larger populations do help reduce waiting time, we see that the benefit of larger population size produces rapidly diminishing returns (Table 4 and Fig. 4). When we increase the hominin population from 10,000 to 1 million (our current upper limit for these types of experiments), the waiting time for creating a string of five is only reduced from two billion to 482 million years. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573302/ Kimura (1968) developed the idea of “Neutral Evolution”. If “Haldane’s Dilemma” is correct, the majority of DNA must be non-functional. – Sanford Carter: Why Evolutionists Need Junk DNA - Robert W. Carter - 2009 Excerpt: Junk DNA is not just a label that was tacked on to some DNA that seemed to have no function, but it is something that is required by evolutionary theory. Mathematically, there is too much variation, too much DNA to mutate, and too few generations in which to get it all done. This was the essence of Haldane's work. Without junk DNA, evolutionary theory cannot currently explain how everything works mathematically.,,, Robert W. Carter - biologist http://creation.com/junk-dna-slow-death
In other words, Neutral theory, and the concept of junk DNA, was not developed because of any compelling empirical observation, but was actually developed because it was forced upon Darwinists by the mathematics of population genetics. In plain English, neutral theory, and the concept of junk DNA, is actually the result of a theoretical failure of Darwinism, particularly Natural Selection, within the mathematics of population genetics!
"many genomic features could not have emerged without a near-complete disengagement of the power of natural selection" Michael Lynch The Origins of Genome Architecture, intro "the uncritical acceptance of natural selection as an explanatory force for all aspects of biodiversity (without any direct evidence) is not much different than invoking an intelligent designer" Michael Lynch The Origins of Genome Architecture, p 368 Stephen Meyer on the inadequacy of neutral theory (focus is on Michael Lynch in particular). [S.Meyer, ch.16, ‘Darwin’s Doubt’] https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/if-it-is-a-fact-fact-fact-how-can-the-facts-change/#comment-587770 "a relative lack of natural selection may be the prerequisite for major evolutionary advance" Mae Wan Ho Beyond neo-Darwinism - Evolution by Absence of Selection
Sternberg comments on the obvious implications of Natural Selection, i.e. the 'designer substitute', being severely demoted in its theoretical importance for Darwin's theory:
“Darwinism provided an explanation for the appearance of design, and argued that there is no Designer -- or, if you will, the designer is natural selection. If that's out of the way -- if that just does not explain the evidence -- then the flip side of that is, well, things appear designed because they are designed.” Richard Sternberg - Living Waters documentary Whale Evolution vs. Population Genetics - Richard Sternberg and Paul Nelson - (excerpt from Living Waters video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0csd3M4bc0Q
Even Moran himself leans heavily towards Neutral theory being true (although he flip flops to natural selection being a major player when put in a pinch. See Torley: “Larry Moran responds to my questions” for an example of Moran's flip flopping on the importance of natural selection). In an exchange with me personally, Moran seemed to lean heavily towards neutral theory being for the most part true. He stated
Larry Moran, a professor of Evolutionary Biology, quoting Futuyma: “The theory of genetic drift … includes some of the most highly refined mathematical models in biology.” Me to Moran: “can you be kind enough to point us to the exact experiment that verified that those ‘highly refined mathematical models’ were actually talking about reality instead of just Darwinian pipe dreams?” Larry Moran to me: “That’s like asking to show how the mathematical models of physics predict the formation of Venus. Do you realize how silly that sounds?” Me to Moran: “Not nearly as silly as you saying that unguided material processes (completely disconnected from natural selection) could EVER build a flagellum given all the time in the universe. Which is still yet orders of magnitude not as silly as you saying unguided material processes created your ‘beyond belief’ brain. And by the way, unlike your ‘highly refined mathematical model’ for which you claim real world testing is ‘silly’, you do realize that ID has its own ‘highly refined mathematical model’ that actually does hold up to real world testing? In fact, just one instance of unguided material processes creating functional information would falsify Dembski and Marks’ conservation of information theorem (and thus falsify Intelligent Design, and potentially earn you a 3 million dollar prize).” https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/are-some-of-our-opponents-in-the-grip-of-a-domineering-parasitical-ideology/#comment-587917
bornagain77_{September 2, 2016
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The paper is about centromeres. Nobody ever said that centromeres were junk DNA. Centromeres perform essential functions in your genome. What's in your genome? The press release is garbage. Only a fool (or an IDiot) would believe such a stupid university press release. Only a fool wouldn't bother to read the paper. There's nothing in the paper about junk DNA.Larry Moran_{September 1, 2016
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You got to wonder how much humiliation an evolutionist can take. After their central claim of junk dna gets shot down, they still cling to their materialist beliefs. I feel sorry for them trapped in a quagmire of embarrassment.Peter_{September 1, 2016
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Interestingly, Larry Moran is apparently writing something for the first time and it's apparently going to be a book to support the 90% junk DNA delusion that very few uneducated Darwinists apparently still support. I've offered to publish Larry's book asap so that by the time his book is published it is no longer 85% SHORT OUT OF JUNK DNA PREDICTION. I hope Larry takes it seriously and is not trying to commit himself to failure right at the end of his ....... career...J-Mac_{September 1, 2016
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