Prions and extinctions and junk DNA, oh my!
by KrauzeAt The Panda's Thumb Andrea Bottaro has a post about prions, and how they "contradict century-old biological assumptions and seem to defy the expectations of Darwinian evolutionary theory" (see also our own Bipod's post about them here). Of course, Bottaro thinks that "what must be truly baffling for conspiracy-minded ID advocates, the inflexible "Darwinist orthodoxy" seems to positively dig this "heresy"." For the record, I've never played the "conspiracy" card, since others do that so well.
At Post-Darwinist Denyse O'Leary has a post about paleontologist Simon Conway Morris' recent article about mass extinctions (subscribtion required). A common argument against front-loading is that evolution is simply too random: In Stephen J. Gould's words, rerun the tape of evolution, and you'll end up with some completely different lifeforms. In his latest books Conway Morris has disputed this argument, and he also touches on it in this article:
The bolide misses and the dinosaurs go home for tea... You know the mantra: no K/T impact, no dinosaur extinctions, so no mammalian evolutionary radiations, so neither primates nor in due course apes and so ultimately no us. True, but trivial. Imagine a counterfactual Earth, with no K/T impact. Twenty million years later the planet still sails into major glaciations. Dinosaurs are doing fine, thank you, but look what's happening in the cooler temperate and polar regions. Warm-blooded critters are taking the initiative. Both birds and mammals are intelligent, social and have a tendency to make tools. This means that sooner or later a sentient species with technology will emerge: the demise of the heavy brigade is inevitable. Mass extinctions may accelerate (maybe postpone), but they never cancel.
In Nature Peter Andolfatto has an article on non-coding DNA, or, as some like to call it, "junk DNA". He reports that there are signs that non-coding DNA in fruitflies is being maintained by natural selection, which indicates that it plays a functional role after all. The article, "Adaptive evolution of non-coding DNA in Drosophila", is only available to subscribers, but the editor's summary can be read for free. It suggests:
Time to junk the term 'junk DNA', or to reserve it for DNA of proven uselessness. Geneticists favour the less judgmental term 'non-coding DNA' for those parts of the genome not translated into protein, and there is growing evidence that it is important in disease, development and evolution.
October 20th, 2005 at 12:48 pm
"Geneticists favour the less judgmental term "˜non-coding DNA' for those parts of the genome not translated into protein"¦"
So a sequence of DNA that encodes RNA, that does not encode protein, would be called "non-coding DNA"?
You'd think that some basic terminology would have been agreed upon by now. Or is the confusion all my own?
Also information that is not part of a message, such as would be transcribed or translated, may nonetheless be indispensable (not "junk"). Our computers are now communicating by sharing a lot of information that is basically useless or meaningless to you and I. You aren't seeing that information appear on the page. Nonetheless its critical to effective intercommunication. Life forms seem to process a lot of information and we don't know what a lot of that information is for. Just lumping it altogether as "junk," doesn't seem to me to be the first scientific option.
Dembski has written that ID is basically a theory about information. Mostly it is used, as information-theoretic techniques are often (if not always really), to support inductions, to design and detect patterns, etc. But the application of information theory to biology remains a wide open field to explore, on every level, and you'd think all those IDers out there would by hot on the trail.
And it is the kind of work that doesn't require a ton of money, or a supersophisticated biolab. You have public databases and an enormous body of science, applied and natural, to work with right at hand. (As always I'm sure the IDers appreciate my advice.) It could be that life forms use a lot of really sophisticated information processing techniques, some of which may be unknown, but some of which may be quite familiar to communications theorists and engineers (intelligent designers), but which biologists don't know enough to look for.
Comment by Rock — October 20, 2005 @ 12:48 pm
October 20th, 2005 at 1:27 pm
Rock, I luv u man!
Perhaps more of the following will be a means to that end:
Approaching Biology from a Different Angle
Comment by Joe G — October 20, 2005 @ 1:27 pm
October 21st, 2005 at 5:58 am
Ok, if I got this right "junk DNA" was touted by NDE as the prediction of the theory (because its junk) and now its touted again as important to evolution (because its NOT junk). Lights are on, but (definitely) nobody is home.
Comment by inunison — October 21, 2005 @ 5:58 am
October 22nd, 2005 at 9:13 am
Anyone here ever play Tetris?
It's a fun game. You're given a block which is made up for 4 smaller cubes. The configuration of those 4 cubes that comprise that block varies from block to block. It descends from the top of the screen and it is the players job to make sure those pieces form seamless, horizontal lines. When they do, the cubes that made up that horizontal section just disappear.
But, as you get further into the game the pieces/blocks start descending more rapidly. The players ability to line them blocks up in straight horizontal lines becomes comprised. The fits become more and more awkward, and eventually the player loses.
I have no problem accepting evolution. I HAD no problem accepting naturalistic evolution. But the pieces/blocks/information that I was getting while playing the naturalistic (unguided) game were beginning to fit more and more strangely. Eventually, I was unable to support that outlook. Game over.
Comment by Benton — October 22, 2005 @ 9:13 am
October 22nd, 2005 at 8:04 pm
inunison said:
Ok, if I got this right "junk DNA" was touted by NDE as the prediction of the theory (because its junk) and now its touted again as important to evolution (because its NOT junk). Lights are on, but (definitely) nobody is home.
Actually, "junk DNA" was not a prediction of evolutionary theory. However, the existence of "junk DNA" would conflict with creationism ("why would God create DNA which does nothing?") In the evolution/creationism debate, the existence of "junk DNA" would support evolution. (Depending on the specifics of ID theory, it could also be okay with the existence or non-existence of junk DNA.)
In some ways "junk DNA", therefore, is like the old creationist claim that there is not enough helium in the atmosphere for the earth to be billions of years old - i.e. "not enough helium" is not predicted by creationism, the fact that "not enough helium" is untrue does not count as a mark against creationism, but the existence of inadequate helium would (if it were true) count as evidence against an old earth.
In addition, the claim, "now its touted again as important to evolution" is an example of a scientist explaining non-coding DNA through the evolutionary framework — it's not being used as evidence for evolution. It's entirely valid and coherent for him to do this.
The upshot of both of my points is this: you claim that both possibilities (existence of junk DNA, non-existence of junk DNA) are seen as supporting NDE — thus, the scientists want to have it both ways. In fact, that's not what's happening. He's not using the non-existence of junk DNA as evidence for evolution; he's explaining it from an evolutionary viewpoint.
It's also worth noting the rigor with which scientists are examining things. Andolfatto is an evolutionist, but that doesn't mean he shys away from testing things like "is junk DNA actually junk" I say kudos to scientists who do this. Notably, it was not a IDer or a creationist who did this. Why not? There is no obvious reason IDers or creationists could not get in and do the same rigorous work. Instead, it ends up being NDE scientists who are displaying the most rigor in testing and questioning the NDE assumptions in actual scientific ways.
Comment by BC — October 22, 2005 @ 8:04 pm
October 23rd, 2005 at 7:43 am
BC:
However, the existence of "junk DNA" would conflict with creationism ("why would God create DNA which does nothing?")
A few things: 1) No onme said that the original created kinds had to be perfect; 2) No one said that even if the originally created kinds were perfect they had to remain that way (IOW what we now observe is the result of random mutations); 3) Not knowing "why" does not refute anything.
Why didn't an IDist (IDer would be someone who designs, IDist is a proponent of ID) do this work? I wouldn't know how to tell if they didn't. I mean I am not in every lab around the world- are you?
As for explaining that "junk" DNA really isn't junk from an evolutionary standpoint doesn't make much sense. Now that we know this isn't junk that does not bode well for NDE as now they have much more to account for.
Comment by Joe G — October 23, 2005 @ 7:43 am
March 6th, 2006 at 11:26 am
Another foot soldier in the Army of the Not Very Bright
From time to time I'm going to highlight some examples of the thought processes of rank-and-file proponents of Intelligent Design. Everyone familiar with the subject knows that the popular spokesmen (and they are almost all male) for ID are, in
Trackback by Clever Beyond Measure — March 6, 2006 @ 11:26 am